Description
The Routledge Introduction to Auto/biography in Canada explores the exciting world of nonfiction writing about the self, designed to give teachers and students the tools they need to study both canonical and lesser-known works. The volume introduces important texts and contexts for interpreting life narratives, demonstrates the conceptual tools necessary to understand what life narratives are and how they work, and offers an historical overview of key moments in Canadian auto/biography. Not sure what life writing in Canada is, or how to study it? This critical introduction covers the tools and approaches you require in order to undertake your own interpretation of life writing texts. You will encounter nonfictional writing about individual lives and experiences—including biography, autobiography, letters, diaries, comics, poetry, plays, and memoirs. The volume includes case studies to provide examples of how to study and research life narratives and toolkits to help you apply what you learn. The Routledge Introduction to Auto/biography in Canada provides instructors and students with the contexts and the critical tools to discover the power of life writing, and the skills to study any kind of nonfiction, from Canada and around the world.
Table of Contents
PART I: WHAT IS AUTO/BIOGRAPHY?
Beginnings: Auto/biography, Biography, and Life Writing
Auto/biography
Studying Auto/Biography: Approaches, Conventions, and Autobiographical Truth
Auto/biographical Genres and Forms
PART II: AUTO/BIOGRAPHY IN CANADA
Reading the Nation
Exploration, Travel, and Settlement: Settler-Colonial and Indigenous Accounts
Modern Canada Between WWI and WWII
Indigenous Life Writing Since 1967
Case Study: Maria Campbell, Halfbreed
Race, Nation, and the Limits of Imagined Community
Case Study, Lorena Gale Je me souviens: Memories of an Expatriate Anglophone Montréalaise Québécoise exiled in Canada. Talonbooks, 2001
PART III: AUTO/BIOGRAPHICAL STORIES
Telling and Reading Auto/biographical Stories
Experimental and Hybrid Forms
Case Study: Fred Wah, Diamond Grill
Auto/biographical Comics in Canada
Testimony and Witnessing
Disability and Illness Life Writing
Case Study: Dorothy Ellen Palmer, Falling For Myself (2019)
Diasporic Lives, Diasporic Stories
Asian Canadian Life Writing (Eleanor Ty, Wilfrid Laurier University)
Case Study: Jenny Heijun Wills, Older Sister. Not Necessarily Related (Eleanor Ty, Wilfrid Laurier University)
Queer Life Writing in Canada: 2SLGBTQ+ Lives and Stories
Biography and Writers’ Lives
Case Study: Terry Fox and Biography
PART IV: SITES OF AUTO/BIOGRAPHY
Archives
Case Study: The Rural Diary Archive
Paratexts
Case Study: Paratexts I - Getting Started with Paratext
Case Study: Paratexts II – Peritextual Analysis
Interviews
Case Study: Listening to Many Voices (A Conversation Between Julie Rak and Karina Vernon)
PART V: TOOLKITS FOR STUDYING AUTO/BIOGRAPHY
TOOLKIT 1: Studying Auto/Biography
TOOLKIT 2: Studying Auto/Biographical Comics
TOOLKIT 3: Archives and Archival Research
TOOLKIT 4: Studying Paratexts
TOOLKIT 5: Studying Interviews
