Autobiography

Genre

Feminist critique of autobiography as a literary genre whose beginnings arise from the accounts of elite white males is scrutinized for its exclusionary practices. The notion of the autobiographer as a unified, transcendent white subject is questioned. Differences that underscore sexuality, nationality, age, class, culture, and race are interwoven in feminist autobiographical investigations.

Intersubjectivity

This term refers to the examination of the relationship between personal narratives and the public realm. This includes the [Page 42]examination of how experience is both narratively and dialogically organized. Cosslett, Lury, and Summerfield argue that knowledge of these relationships is central for a nuanced understanding regarding the process of composition through which a narrative is produced. Feminists use interiority because women's narratives are often excluded from the public realm. Intersubjectivity insists that that self cannot be analyzed as an isolated subjecthood, but rather, it must be understood in relationship with others—through which the self is constituted.

Memory

Memory involves recovery of the past. Further, Cosslett, Lury, and Summerfield highlight the importance of the past in relation to a projection of the future. Memories are taken up within the personal and collective realms and are often conveyed through partial, shifting, and contested nuances. Further, memory can carry political connotations in terms of what is remembered (both the silences and gaps) as well as what is forgotten, as Luisa Passerini suggests. Of particular importance is the notion that memory is not just individual but can also be shared, or does not necessarily have a single owner. For example, shared memory is exemplified through the media or through shared rituals.

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