This symposium brings together a range of leading scholars from different disciplines, all dealing with aspects of life story, to examine the question of what might constitute significant differences between life writing in different places.
Program (PDF ) and Registration Form (PDF)
Convened by:
Professor Peter Read, Department of History, Sydney University
Professor Craig Howes, Biography Institute, University of Hawaii
Associate Professor Maureen Perkins, Curtin University
Papers will include:
Mary Besemeres, ‘Submerged translation: bilingual Australians’ reflections on experiences of speaking at cross-purposes with non-bilinguals’.
Kristina Everett, ‘Not Telling Tales: Secrets and the Construction of lndigenous Australian Life Histories’.
Kenneth M. George, ‘Fieldnotes and Episodes from the Transnational Circuity of Life Stories’.
David T. Hill, ‘Writing Lives in Exile: Autobiographies of the Indonesian Left Abroad’.
Philip Holden, ‘Refusing the Cultural Turn: Amir Muhammad’s Politics of Surfaces’.
Kiran Narayan, ‘My Family and Other Saints’.
Gerry van Klinken, ‘Kupang 1945-1970: Why some struggles were won, and others lost’.
Shao Dongfang describes 'modern' life writing as a relatively recent practice in China, with biography, for example, only taking shape in the mid twentieth century and with major differences from the West still apparent. Similarly, Gerry van Klinken argues that 'Biographical writing in Indonesia differs dramatically from that in the West.' Are there really significant differences between life writing in different regions?
The papers will explore the manner in which all forms of biography and autobiography emerge in a particular cultural context, especially in contexts outside Europe and North America. Our emphasis is not so much the formation of identity or an apparently transparent self-narration, but rather the cultural and social work that auto/biography does for a society.
While we welcome papers that demonstrate a close understanding of specific context, we hope that ensuing discussion will draw out points of cross-regional comparison. Moving away from what Shirley Geok-lin Lim has described as the ‘disguise’ of auto/biography as ego-centric, we hope to explore life writing as a historical, material and ideological practice. Our thanks to Margaretta Jolly for the concept of auto/biography as a culture’s ‘self-image’ (Biography, 23.3:481-503).
Themes will include:
* National identity and life writing
* The influence of place on the writing process
* Life writing as cultural resistance or colonization
* Life writing as cultural reinvention
* The relative importance of autobiography as compared with biography
* Conceptions of the individual and self
* Audiences
* Life writing and the spiritual life.
Places for presenters at this symposium are now filled, but registration for those who would like to attend is open.