1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910157445603321

Autore

Brown Megan (Professor of English)

Titolo

American Autobiography after 9/11 / / Megan Brown

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Madison, Wisconsin : , : The University of Wisconsin Press, , 2017

©2017

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (173 pages)

Collana

Wisconsin studies in autobiography

Disciplina

810.9/492

Soggetti

Biography as a literary form

Authors, American - Biography - History and criticism

American prose literature - History and criticism - 21st century

Autobiography

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Introduction: "we have known who the falling man is all along" -- Keeping It Real, or, "Fraud" Memoirs and Representations of Ethnic Authenticity -- Learning to Live Again: Contemporary U.S. Memoir as Biopolitical Self-Care Guide -- Memoirs of Empire -- Babies, Blow Jobs, and Bombs: The Bromoir and/as Anxiety -- Selling Subjectivity: Business Memoirs as Biopolitical Management -- The Memoir as Provocation: A Case for "Me Studies" in Undergraduate Classes.

Sommario/riassunto

In the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, American memoirists have wrestled with a wide range of anxieties in their books. They cope with financial crises, encounter difference, or confront norms of identity. Megan Brown contends that such best sellers as Cheryl Strayed's Wild, Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love, and Tucker Max's I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell teach readers how to navigate a confusing, changing world. This lively and theoretically grounded book analyzes twenty-first-century memoirs from Three Cups of Tea to Fun Home, emphasizing the ways in which they reinforce and circulate ideologies, becoming guides or models for living. Brown expands her inquiry beyond books to the autobiographical narratives in reality television and political speeches. She offers a persuasive explanation



for the memoir boom: the genre as a response to an era of uncertainty and struggle.