Photographs of four American authors whose biographies, memoirs, or autobiographies are studied in the course, including Harriet Jacobs (top left), Alison Bechdel (top right), Sherman Alexie (bottom left) and Frederick Douglass (bottom right). (Photo of Harriet Jacobs in public domain. Photo of Frederick Douglass in public domain, courtesy of SIRIS. Photo of Sherman Alexie courtesy of Ellen Davis on Flickr. CC license BY-NC-SA. Photo of Alison Bechdel courtesy of tineke on Flickr. CC license BY-NC.)
Instructor(s)
Wyn Kelley
MIT Course Number
21L.512
As Taught In
Fall 2013
Level
Undergraduate
Course Description
Course Features
Course Description
What is a "life" when it's written down? How does memory inform the present? Why are autobiographies and memoirs so popular? This course will address these questions among others, considering the relationship between biography, autobiography, and memoir and between personal and social themes. We will examine classic authors such as Mary Rowlandson, Benjamin Franklin, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, and Mark Twain; then more recent examples like Tobias Wolff, Art Spiegelman, Sherman Alexie, Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Edwidge Danticat, and Alison Bechdel.
Other Versions
Other OCW Versions
OCW has published multiple versions of this subject. 