Begin here : reading Asian North American autobiographies of childhood /

An analytically innovative work, Begin Here widens the current critical focus of Asian North American literary studies by proposing an integrated thematic and narratological approach to the practice of autobiography. It demonstrates how Asian North American memoirs of childhood challenge the constru...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Davis, Rocío G.
Format: Electronic eBook
Language:English
Published: Honolulu : University of Hawai'i Press, ©2007.
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Online Access:Connect to this title online (unlimited users allowed)
Description
Summary:An analytically innovative work, Begin Here widens the current critical focus of Asian North American literary studies by proposing an integrated thematic and narratological approach to the practice of autobiography. It demonstrates how Asian North American memoirs of childhood challenge the construction and performative potential of national experiences. This understanding influences theoretical approaches to ethnic life writing, expanding the boundaries of traditional autobiography by negotiating narrative techniques and genre and raising complex questions about self-representation and the construction of cultural memory. By examining the artistic project of some fifty Asian North American writers who deploy their childhood narratives in the representation of the individual processes of self-identification and negotiation of cultural and national affiliation, this work provides a comprehensive overview of Asian North American autobiographies of childhood published over the last century. Importantly, it also attends to new ways of writing autobiographies, employing comics, blending verse, prose, diaries, and life writing for children, and using relational approaches to self-identification, among others.
Physical Description:1 online resource (xii, 234 pages)
Format:Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002.
Bibliography:Includes bibliographical references (pages 207-222) and index.
ISBN:9781435666412
1435666410
9780824861599
0824861590