Life Writing and Literary Metissage As an Ethos for Our Times

This book introduces literary metissage as a way to research, teach, and live ethically. The authors theorize and perform literary metissage through the praxis of life writing, braiding their autobiographical texts, in various genres, into seven themes, such as creation stories, mixed identities, and opening to the world. Each chapter begins with an overview, then presents essays and poems by the authors, tracing their own mixed and multiple identities, and exploring questions related to the transformation of subject and object in autobiographical and life writing. Essays are complemented with b&w family photos. The writing illustrates literary metissage as a research praxis that braid strands of memory, history, language, and literacy with strands of tradition, ambiguity, and renewal. Hasebe-Ludt is associate professor of teacher education at the University of Lethbridge, Canada. Co-author Cynthia Chambers also teaches in the faculty of education at the University of Lethbridge. Co-author Carl Leggo is a poet and professor in the Department of Language and Literacy Education at the University of British Columbia. Annotation c2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)