ENG4429 – Life Writing in English

Schedule, syllabus and examination date

Course content

Books and writings claiming to portray real lives and life experiences are a recently growing trend. The writers "tell all" in autobiographies and memoirs, letters, diaries or essays, or on social media. The genre of life writing can also include poems and narratives that evolve into autobiographical fiction, or biographical narratives not written in the first person. How has this rich and varied genre evolved historically and why is it still so popular today? Which theories and perspectives can help us understand the phenomenon of life writing? In this course, we will examine a range of texts written in English, focusing on how they are written and how they matter.

Portraying a life or telling one’s story can take many different forms, from commercial branding and cultivation of stereotypes to a radical challenging of societal norms and expectations. The question of who gets their story told opens up to discussions of cultural identity and representation. Experimental life writing is related to art, politics, and philosophy, defined by Theodor W. Adorno in the 1960s as the liberating "smashing of the fa?ade of life in which one happens to find oneself."

Learning outcome

After completing this course, you

  • can identify varieties of, and developments within, life writing such as autobiographies or biographies in English,
  • can analyze this category of non-fiction texts with recourse to relevant theory,
  • can demonstrate the ability to reflect on various distinctions between fiction and non-fiction,
  • have a working knowledge of textual and rhetorical analysis, for use even when reading other kinds of texts,
  • have developed skills in critical writing and argumentation that are transferrable to most areas of professional employment.

Admission to the course

Students who are admitted to study programmes at UiO must each semester register which courses and exams they wish to sign up for in Studentweb.

This course is for students admitted to European Languages (master) and UVM5-LEP,?masterspesialisering i engelsk. Students enrolled in other Master`s Degree Programmes can, on application, be admitted to the course if this is cleared by their own study programme.

If you are not already enrolled as a student at UiO, please see our information about admission requirements and procedures.

Teaching

Seminars, 2 hours per week for 10 weeks.

Obligatory activities: