The Routledge Autobiography Studies Reader

The Routledge Auto|Biography Studies Reader collects together key theoretical essays in the field, creating a solid base for any critical study of autobiography, biography, or life writing.

Beginning with a foreword by Sidonie Smith and a general introduction to the collection, the book is then divided into three sections—Foundations, Transformations, and Futures—each with its own introduction. Significant themes weave throughout the sections, including canonicity; genre, modality, and interdisciplinarity; reclamation of texts; disability and the contested body; trauma; agency, silence, and voicing; celebrity culture; digital lives; subjects in the margins; postcolonialism; posthumanism; and, ecocriticism. Attention has also been given to a variety of methodological approaches, such as archival research, genealogical study, DNA testing, autoethnography, testimonio, and oral history, among others.

Ricia A. Chansky is Associate Professor of Literature at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez. She is co-editor of the journal,a|b Autobiography Studies, and editor of the forthcoming volume, Movement and Belonging: Transnational Themes in Auto/Biographical Narratives of the Americas.

Emily Hipchen is Professor of Writing at the University of West Georgia, USA. She is co-editor of the journal,a|b Autobiography Studies, and co-editor of the volume, Inhabiting La Patria: Identity, Agency, and Antojo in the Work of Julia Alvarez.