Module leader: Professor Jane Ridley
Autumn Term (15 units)
This is a 1-term module designed to offer a systematic understanding and critical awareness of Autobiography and Life Writing. Students are introduced to various types of autobiographical writing, from diaries and memoirs to literary autobiography, autobiographical fiction and the personal memoir. Guest speakers are chosen to reflect the strong literary element in this subject.
Topics studied include:
- What is autobiography?
- Victorian autobiography
- Fathers and sons: Edmund Gosse and John Stuart Mill
- Diaries: Samuel Pepys
- Romantic autobiography: Dorothy Wordsworth
- The Political Memoir
- Celebrity autobiography and the ghost writer
- The personal memoir
Assessment : Term paper of 3,000 – 5,000 words.
