Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2005. / Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center; full text release delayed at author's request until 2009 May 31

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

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abstract: ABSTRACT This dissertation focuses on Anne Moody's use of the autobiographical genre as an extension of her political activism. Noting consistent values and conventions that govern the writing of political activists, this study asserts that Moody's narrative is best situated in the genre of political autobiography--a term coined by Angela Davis. Using Margo V. Perkins' text as a base to define autobiography as activism, this dissertation illustrates the consistent values that characterize Moody's narrative as political autobiography, resistance literature, and ultimately Black Power literature. Building on the works of Joanne Braxton, Patricia Hill Collins, Angela Davis, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, bell hooks, Margo V. Perkins, Assata Shakur, and Johnny Stover, this project demonstrates the use of Moody's autobiography as a collective form of resistance that is reflective of autobiography as activism. To frame its argument, this study theorizes how one comes into revolutionary consciousness, demonstrating the move toward activism as a process. Drawing on Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson's autobiographical theory that the "narrated I" is distinguished from the "narrating I," this study asserts, as Francoise Lionnet suggests, that the "narrating I" is the vehicle to deliver recollections relevant to the autobiographer's agenda. This study emphasizes that the early version of the self Moody creates is consciously linked to her role as a future activist, ultimately demonstrating her political evolution through the emphatic linking of the personal and political. Most importantly, this dissertation demonstrates that Moody's text represents a continuity--an autobiographical bridge--between representations of the Christian nonviolent civil rights movement and the Black Power movement of the late 1960's. This study argues that Moody's autobiography is ideologically poised at the intersection of civil rights and Black Power; therefore, it serves as both a civil rights autobiography and a Black Power autobiography. Coming of Age in Mississippi offers a unique contribution to the genre of Black Power autobiography for the way it facilitates unprecedented insight into the transition from non-violent civil rights ideology to revolutionary consciousness. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. English 2011

O presente trabalho tem por objetivo estudar e compreender a trajetória e o contexto de vida de Gustavus Vassa (que se auto denominava, também, Olaudah Equiano) (1750- 1797), um africano que atuou como marinheiro nas embarcações do Atlântico, tendo por base sua autobiografia escrita e editada em 1789. O objetivo principal é verificar a validade desse texto enquanto fonte histórica, analisar a vida desse sujeito como marinheiro durante o período e discutir sua memória em relação ao continente africano. Pretende-se a partir de tal texto reconstruir aspectos do cotidiano dos marinheiros que trabalhavam no Atlântico durante o século XVIII, e analisar a maneira pela qual o seu autor apresenta a memória de sua comunidade de origem, a comunidade Igbo, da atual República da Nigéria, na África ocidental. Esse trabalho foi baseado principalmente na autobiografia desse homem que se intitulava Olaudah Equiano, o africano, mas que possuía um nome de batismo ocidental, Gustavus Vassa. A obra desse marinheiro tem sido reeditada desde sua primeira edição em 1789 e hoje faz parte do cânone de textos conhecidos como literatura afro-americana. São diversos os estudos ligados a outras áreas de pesquisa, como Literatura, que utilizam desse relato para estudar o cotidiano dos escravos e ex-escravos no período em questão. Nossos principais objetivos nesse trabalho foram verificar a validade desse texto enquanto fonte histórica, analisar a vida desse sujeito como marinheiro durante o período e discutir sua memória em relação ao continente africano. Procuramos colocar à prova o texto de Gustavus Vassa enquanto fonte histórica acerca do cotidiano dos marinheiros e também em relação a seu passado em África. Pretendemos, a partir do texto desse africano, reconstruir um pouco do cotidiano dos marinheiros que trabalhavam no Atlântico durante o século XVIII. Além disso, podemos também observar que muitos desses marinheiros eram africanos ou afro-americanos que engajavam-se nessa lide com o objetivo de ascender socialmente, ou mesmo para sobreviver de uma forma mais digna do que os outros escravizados nas plantations do novo mundo. / The paper aims to study and understand the biography and life context of Gustavus Vassa (who also called himself Olaudah Equiano) (1750-1797), an African who worked as a sailor in the vessels of the Atlantic. Our study is based on his autobiography, written and edited in 1789. Our main objectives in this work were to verify the validity of the text as a historical source, analyze the life of this subject as a sailor during the period of his life and discuss his memory in relation to the African continent. By analyzing the text, we also seek to reconstruct aspects of the daily life of sailors that worked in the Atlantic during the 18th century and analyze the way the author presents the memory of his native community, the Igbo who currently reside in the Republic of Nigeria in West Africa. The work was based on the autobiography of this man, who called himself Olaudah Equiano, the African, but had a western forename, Gustavos Vassa. This sailor‟s work has been reedited since its first edition in 1789 and today is part of the canon of known texts of african-american literature. There are several studies connected to other research areas, such as Literature, that use this account to study the daily life of slaves and former slaves in the period in question. We tried to put to the test Gustavus Vassa‟s text as a historical source about the lives of sailors, as well as his past in Africa. Based on this African man‟s text, we sought to reconstruct a bit of the everyday life of sailors who worked in the Atlantic during the eighteenth century. In addition, we also observed that many of these sailors were African or African-Americans who commited to this activity in order to ascend socially or even seeking a better life than other slaves in the plantations of the New World.

The present thesis deals with the Namibian liberation struggle against the South African regime, by focusing on the relationship of solidarity between SWAPO and East Germany. It provides an original perspective of the German-Namibian history between 1978-1990, by using the life stories of Lucia Engombe and Stefanie Lahya Aukongo. They are Namibian women who, according to the pact of solidarity, lived on the brink between Namibia and East Germany, becoming in this way witnesses of the historical upheavals that have changed the global order. Then, this thesis makes use of Child No. 95. My German-African Odyssey – the autobiography of Lucia Engombe – and Kalungas Kind: meine unglaubliche Reise uns Leben – the autobiography of Stefanie Layha Aukongo – as sources to investigate the complexities of that period. The global lives of Lucia Engombe and Stefanie Lahya Aukongo allow the combination of macro and micro history and bring out new facets, which otherwise would remain in the shadow. Through the deconstruction of their life narratives, in fact, the big narrative of the global history become fraught with new meanings, bringing out the power of microhistories. This thesis shows how individual autobiographies can be meaningful to history, and how global history can be reconciled with micro-history through the story of global lives, which provide new and unprecedented points of view.

L’auteur dramatique grec Iakovos Kambanellis a connu l’expérience du camp de concentration et en a tiré, vingt ans plus tard, sa seule œuvre narrative, Mauthausen. Prenant ce récit pour pivot, notre recherche interroge les liens qui existent entre une écriture née de l’expérience concentrationnaire et le théâtre chez cet auteur. Pour cela, nous replaçons le texte narratif dans une perspective autobiographique pour la dépasser en rattachant Mauthausen à la littérature concentrationnaire et pour y déceler le dispositif scénique d’un tombeau littéraire. Puis, nous étudions les enjeux thématiques et idéologiques de l’écriture du dramaturge en lien avec son expérience traumatique. Nous nous penchons alors sur des pièces à relier au trauma de l’homme revenu du camp dans un pays livré à la guerre civile. Des motifs et des thèmes de la littérature concentrationnaire sont mis en évidence dans plusieurs pièces. En outre, la figure d’Ulysse, récurrente dans le théâtre de Kambanellis, apparaît comme symbolique de l’identité du rescapé. Enfin, nous observons la façon dont se résolvent les tensions entre diégèse et mimèsis pour se transformer en dynamique littéraire. Ainsi, sont étudiés les statuts du narrateur et du personnage ainsi que l’inscription de ces entités dans un espace fondateur réel/imaginaire où l’emploi du mythe transfigure l’expérience concentrationnaire et lui donne sa dimension politique. Nous revenons aussi sur la notion d’illusion chez Kambanellis qui, finalement, a consacré son talent au jeu et au mystère de l’imaginaire, de l’ὑποτίθεται, dont nous considérons qu’il renvoie en partie à son expérience concentrationnaire. / A Greek playwright, Iakovos Kambanellis drew on his personal experience of the concentration camp to write, two decades later, his only narrative work, Mauthausen. Taking this work as a central point, our research questions the links existing between a text born of the concentrationary experience and the theatre of this author. Our choice is to frame the narrative in an autobiographical perspective, allowing us to explore and connect Mauthausen to the genre of “littérature concentrationnaire” (concentrationary literature) and reveal the stage setting of a “tombeau littéraire” (literary funeral monument). Next we examine the thematic and ideological challenges of the author’s writing as related to his traumatic experience. We review the plays which can be linked to the trauma of a man returning from the camp to a country in the throes of civil war. Motifs and themes of the “littérature concentrationnaire” are revealed in several plays. Ulysses, a recurrent figure in the theatrical writing of Kambanellis, appears to symbolize the survivor’s identity. Finally, we observe how the tensions between diegesis and mimesis achieve a dynamic resolution. The positions of narrator and character are examined and inscribed in a real/imaginary world in which the use of the myth transfigures the concentrationary experience and invests it with its political dimension. We review also Kambanellis’s notion of illusion, and how he devoted his talent to the interplay and to the mystery of the imaginary, of the ὑποτίθεται, which refers in our opinion in part to his concentrationary experience.

This dissertation argues for a relational ethic of listening that emphasizes the pedagogical role of the listener as a student in dialogically hearing, producing, and responding to the other. This ethic of listening works to hear possibilities amongst differences, and to ethically account for and learn from the cultural, historical, and embodied differences of the other as they are produced relationally amongst macro-structures and micro-practices. In order to develop this ethic of listening, I pay specific attention to my solo autobiographical performance, Miles away from "The Cool," in which I present my autobiographical and musical reading of the autobiography of trumpet player Miles Davis, Miles. This performance and my research regarding the music, life story, and cultural significance of Davis functions as an example for my development of a listening centered approach to pedagogy. Listening to jazz and the music of Davis provides an approach to hearing possibilities as they are enabled and constrained by larger macro-structures and specific micro-practices. I argue this approach to listening can be extended to research regarding autobiography and geographic location. Listening to autobiography and location can enable a critical and ethical understanding of the ways history, context, and power play on bodies in jazz, autobiography, location and autobiographical performance. After explaining this relational ethic of listening in terms of autobiography and jazz, I make the case for listening as a performative act in which as listeners we are always students to the other. Performative listening is a critical communicative act that works to ethically and pedagogically hear and learn from the other. Performative listening emerges from a relational ethic of listening, and it is a productive pleasure that works to hear possibilities in and amongst differences.

Applications for funding for arts interventions in prisons need to show the intervention will be working towards reducing reoffending. Previous studies mainly focus on the rehabilitative results of the arts intervention in repairing deficiencies in offenders’ social skills. These deficiencies prevent offenders from making constructive social interactions and are proved sometimes to be characteristic of criminality. However, the aim of this investigation was to use a grounded theory methodology to deconstruct the link between arts and rehabilitation by engaging in a research study in a young offender’s institute (YOI). The findings from the pilot study revealed that the link between rehabilitation and the Arts emerged as its potential to enable the appropriation of new roles. Taking these findings into my literature review, I developed a core framework around rehabilitation, an intervention typology, the Arts and role theory. I took this framework into my main investigation in a YOI in South West England amongst young people involved in music and art courses. From later stages in my research design emerged the significance for young people of the use of autobiographical techniques, showing the potential for participants to gain emotional and cathartic release before moving to a consideration of their future. Further depth of understanding of this pedagogical strategy was gained through interviews conducted with those involved in another course using autobiographical techniques: the Write to Freedom course. The outcomes revealed the place of role in developing and affirming identity and the pedagogical influences which were necessary to enable rehabilitation. The findings add to understanding about pedagogical structures, which can help a young person to envision a new role in a future that embraces desistance. These findings have implications in other contexts where participants inhabit roles which prevent learning development. These techniques can change perception enabling participants to appropriate renovated roles which offer new direction.

[pt] A tese Tramas teóricas e ficcionais na escrita auto(r)biográfica investiga criticamente textos autobiográficos contemporâneos e formas e modelos de sua construção teórica a partir da hipótese de se tratar de discursos inseparáveis marcados por constantes processos de retroalimentação. Neste horizonte é problematizado o estatuto híbrido da escrita autobiográfica situada nos interstícios do factual e do ficcional, contestando a ilusão referencial fundada em modelos dicotômicos excludentes. É questionado, igualmente, o estatuto do autor enquanto sujeito autônomo, integrado, autoconsciente e relativizada a reivindicação de autenticidade e verdade de seus enunciados a favor de uma configuração complexa e cambiante de seus modos de expressão identitária em circuitos comunicativos circunstanciais, marcados por alternâncias, intercâmbios e fusões das distintas instâncias autorais e pela sobreposição com a figura do narrador. O processo de autorreflexão e de autoencenação proposto é entendido como performance de um autor compósito – entre outros, orientando, jornalista, ensaísta, contista, escritor de ficção, professor, pesquisador, candidato ao título de doutor – que constrói uma identidade oscilante no encontro com múltiplos outros. Em consonância com um cenário de reflexão teórica não transparente e dispersa e em diálogo com produções literárias contemporâneas classificadas de inespecíficas – construídas pela articulação de metarreflexões, correios eletrônicos, sonhos e pesadelos, ensaios, fragmentos teóricos, desenhos, imagens, fotografias, citações intertextuais, referências autobiográficas, contos, crônicas e textos literários –, a tese comprova as suas hipóteses no experimento de uma escrita criativa, radicalizando os processos interativos de reciprocidade entre produção literária e construção teórica, ficcionalidade e factualidade, sujeito e objeto, autenticidade e encenação neste work in progress. Em sintonia com a expansão do campo literário, opta-se por uma perspectiva investigativa transdisciplinar e, no espaço da própria configuração textual, ensaia-se uma escrita de sintaxe não linear, interrompida, entrecortada, duplicada, invertida, marcada por reticências e sem ponto final. O texto sinaliza a ambivalência do lugar do discurso através de formas de circulação e recepção, da alternância do narrador autodiegético para o narrador heterodiegético e, também, por meio de um pacto autobiográfico ambíguo, que se desdiz ao longo do texto. Essas dinâmicas ambivalentes oferecem ao leitor possibilidades de escolha. A partir de uma perspectiva epistemológica construtivista e da adoção de uma linguagem metanarrativa, a tese concentra-se em processos: tanto no de escrita quanto no da própria pesquisa, configurando-se, assim, como uma observação de segunda ordem. Neste âmbito, ela se oferece como contribuição significativa para uma discussão atualizada acerca da escrita autobiográfica no espaço disciplinar dos estudos literários que, por seu lado, se caracterizam como permanente work in progress. / [en] The dissertation Theoretical and fictional threads in aut(h)o(r)biographical writing investigates critically contemporary autobiographical texts and forms and models of their theoretical construction from the hypothesis of being inseparable discourses marked by constant feedback processes. In this context the hybrid statute of autobiographical writing located in the interstices of the factual and the fictional is put in doubt, challenging the referential illusion based on excluding dichotomous models. It is also questioned the status of the author as an autonomous subject, integrated, self-conscious and relativized the claim of authenticity and truth of their statements in favor of a complex and changing configuration of their modes of expression of identity in circumstantial communicative circuits, marked by alternations, exchanges and fusion of the different authorial instances and by the superposition with the figure of the narrator. The process of self-reflection and self-enacting is understood as the performance of a composite author – among others, advisee, journalist, essayist, short story writer, teacher, researcher, candidate for doctoral title – who builds an oscillating identity in the encounter with multiple others. Consistent with a non-transparent and dispersed theoretical reflection scenario and in dialogue with contemporary literary productions classified as nonspecific - constructed by the articulation of metareflections, e-mail, dreams and nightmares, essays, theoretical fragments, drawings, images, photographs, intertextual quotations, autobiographical references, short stories, chronicles and literary texts - the thesis proves its hypothesis in the experiment of a creative writing radicalizing the interactive processes of reciprocity between literary production and theoretical construction, fictionality and factuality, subject and object, authenticity and staging in this work in progress. In line with the expansion of the literary field, a transdisciplinary research perspective is chosen and, in the space of the textual configuration itself, a non-linear, interrupted, duplicated, inverted syntax writing marked by suspension points and no period. The text signals the ambivalence of the place of discourse through forms of circulation and reception, from the alternation of the autodiegetic narrator to the heterodiegetic narrator, and also by means of an ambiguous autobiographical pact, which is discouraged throughout the text. These ambivalent dynamics offer the reader possibilities of choice. From a constructivist epistemological perspective and the adoption of a metanarrative language, the thesis focuses on processes: both in writing and in research itself, thus becoming a second order observation. In this context, it offers itself as a significant contribution to an up-to-date discussion of autobiographical writing in the disciplinary space of literary studies which, in turn, are characterized as permanent work in progress.