The effectiveness of first-person narration for self-transformation and social change is indicated by exploring connections between three emergent discourses: illness narratives and memoirs by rape survivors in which the subject speaks from a privileged yet socially marginalized position about life-altering experiences; clinical discourse that elaborates treatment methods for empowering trauma survivors and helping them reconnect with the social world; and scholarly discourse that reflects on the relationship between trauma, self-representation, witnessing, and recovery. Post-Foucauldian theories of life-writing illuminate how the author-subjects of survivor narratives discursively reconstruct their shattered subjectivity in a therapeutic relationship with themselves and their readers. Cognitive and pedagogy theory illuminate how first-person narratives can foster multiple intelligences. Data from the author's own teaching experience illustrates the strengths and potential pitfalls of first-person pedagogy. An abundance of memoirs have been written by rape survivors and by subjects with critical illness since the 1980s; in these texts, subjectivity is reconstructed, often with the result of empowering, validating, and reconnecting the writing subject to the social world from which she has become disenfranchised. College students analyzing these texts often feel sympathy for the autobiographical subject. In this way, first-person narratives foster a compassionate classroom environment, and are valuable tools for developing a student's emotional and cognitive capacities.Chapter One introduces my study and examines theoretical discourse concerning contemporary trauma narratives and autobiography theory. Chapter Two investigates sixteen rape memoirs using Judith Herman's Trauma and Recovery to trace how writing about trauma helps the subject heal from its effects. Chapter Three studies fifteen memoirs about critical illness to see how the subject employs warfare metaphors to describe the effects of illness on her body, and to portray herself as a hero figure. Chapter Four investigates the theoretical basis for employing first-person narratives in the college classroom to foster self-study, well-being, and empathy. Chapter Five presents data from my own teaching experience to demonstrate how incorporating first-person narratives into the college classroom does indeed foster self-study, well-being and empathy. As students come to see themselves as subjects of their own discourse, they also recognize and support another's right to work toward self-transformation.

Magistro darbo tyrimo objektas – Sigito Parulskio, Gintaro Beresnevičiaus, Giedros Radvilavičiūtės, Regimanto Tamošaičio eseistika, kuri analizuojama kaip asmeninė esė. Nagrinėjami šie minėtų autorių esė rinkiniai: „Nuogi drabužiai“ (2002), „Miegas ir kitos moterys“ (2005), „Vilkų saulutė“ (2003), „Suplanuotos akimirkos“ (2004), „Vitaminų pardavėjas“ (2007). Darbo tikslas – analizuoti Parulskio, Beresnevičiaus, Radvilavičiūtės, Tamošaičio eseistiką kaip asmeninę esė, atskleidžiant šios esė estetikos ir poetikos ypatybes, eseistų individualumą. Uždaviniai: 1) Pateikti asmeninės esė teorines apibrėžtis, nurodant jų ribas ir problemas; 2) Identifikuoti asmeninės esė autoriaus mąstymo bei raiškos ypatybes; 3) Nagrinėti lietuvių autorių esė būdingas poetines priemones ir estetines pozicijas; 4) Palyginti skirtingų autorių eseistikos savybes, jų panašumus ir skirtumus; 5) Nustatyti asmeninės esė skaitytojo tipus, jų sąryšį su autoriaus institucija ir tekstu; 7) Atskleisti adresato „lūkesčių horizontą“ ir jo reikšmę skaitomų tekstų suvokimui ir interpretavimui. Tyrimo metodologija – komparatyvistikos teorija, Billo Roorbacho „asmeninės esė“, Umberto Eco „atviro kūrinio“ bei „pavyzdinio skaitytojo“ ir „empirinio skaitytojo“, Hanso Roberto Jausso „lūkesčių horizonto“ koncepcijos. Kadangi asmeninė esė dar nėra kanonizuota, pasitelkiamos ir Phillipo Lopate’o bei Michailo Epsteino įžvalgos apie asmeninės esė meną. Tyrimas atskleidė, kad tarp asmeninės esė ir „atviro“... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The object of the Master’s degree work is essays of Sigitas Parulskis, Gintaras Beresnevičius, Giedra Radvilavičiūtė, Regimantas Tamošaitis, which are analysed as personal essays. The following collections of the mentioned authors are analysed: „Nuogi drabužiai“ (2002), „Miegas ir kitos moterys“ (2005), „Vilkų saulutė“ (2003), „Suplanuotos akimirkos“ (2004), „Vitaminų pardavėjas“ (2007). The aim of the Work is to analyse essays of Parulskis, Beresnevičius, Radvilavičiūtė, Tamošaitis as personal essays, revealing peculiarities of these essays and poetry, individuality of essayists. Tasks: 1) to present theoretical concepts of the personal essay, by defining their limits and problems; 2) to identify peculiarities of thinking and expression of the personal essay author; 3) to analyse poetic aids and aesthetical positions, characteristic to essays of Lithuanian authors; 4) to compare peculiarities of essays of different authors, their similarities and differences; 5) to define types of personal essay readers, their links with institution of the author and the text; 7) to reveal the “horizon of expectation” of the addressee and its effect on perception and interpretation of the read texts. Methodology of the Research – theory of comparativistics, conceptions of “personal essay” by Bill Roorbach, “open creation” and “the model reader” by Umberto Eco, “horizon of expectations” by Hans Robert Jauss. As far as the personal essay has not been canonised, insights about art of personal... [to full text]

On Making Sense of Today is a collection of essays trying to make sense of not only today, but of yesterday - and yesterday's actions, and today's consequences of those actions. It seeks to find understanding of loss, discontent, and disconnection, but ultimately searches for and finds hope, empathy, and connection in the human experience. The collection ranges in subject matter from the trivial - how to recover from a forgotten essay idea - to weightier matters - whether any death should be advocated for and celebrated - and many issues and questions in-between. This collection is also a study of uncertainty and vulnerability, especially how examining uncertainty with vulnerability can cultivate a deeper observation of the human condition. Some of the uncertainties considered in this collection are how to respond to a duplicitous compliment, how a parent can reconcile misunderstanding a child's love language, and how to process the complicated emotions of a child disconnecting from a parent. While the uncertainty of each question is unresolved, each essay does examine these uncertainties with vulnerability, and that vulnerability creates a connection to any reader who has struggled with a similar uncertainty and in that process, both author and reader feel a little less lonely in their struggles to make sense of things that cannot always make sense.

Home Planet is a collection of travel essays about climate change. Like most works in the personal essay tradition, these essays reveal the mind as it works its way through a problem or question, all while inviting writer and readers to foster empathy as a mode of being. Also, like most works in the travel essay subgenre, these essays blend narrative, setting, and thought, suggesting important parallels between interior reflection and exterior displacement. Finally, since the essays in this collection take on climate change as their theme, they attempt to make meaning of climate-related subjects like extreme heat, mass extinction, and ice patch archaeology. Ultimately, the force that unites these essays is love. By describing, hinting at, and plainly stating love for people, landscapes, and more-than-human beings, the essays invite readers to consider their own relationship to the Earth, especially during a time of environmental crisis.

No description available.

No description available.

This is a creative thesis that focuses on the infertility experiences of the author. The introduction examines the author's justification for choosing personal essay as a genre and French feminism as the guiding theory in writing the essays. Six personal essays center on the author's attempts to have a child and the discoveries and failures along the way. Throughout literary history, women's bodies have traditionally been viewed from the outside looking in, as objects to be reified and preserved or exploited and used. Using the writing the body critics as a theoretical framework, the essays discuss the comforts and discomforts of being inside a female body looking out. Although personal, the essays attempt to connect to the larger world. In several of the essays associations are made between the experiences of the author and the experiences of other women. Several essays also reveal the differing perspectives between her and her husband as they experience infertility.

This creative thesis includes two creative non-fiction essays and twenty-two poems, introduced by a critical essay that examines my work. The poems and essays share an origin in personal experience as well as an interest in language. Specifically, the poems and essays explore issues of family, relationships, spirituality, and observations of the natural world. The introductory essay discusses my interest in re-fashioning individual vision through the act of writing, relating to Helene Cixous's idea of creating a "portrait of God" through the act of art. The essay also examines the connections between the genres of creative non-fiction and poetry, in creative writing theory and in my own writing process.

Over all, this thesis was written to be a "ramble" of its own around and through three issues that are central to the writing of the personal essay-voice, authority, and experience-and central to the emergence of this author's own sense of "self."Drawing upon years of voluminous journals, this collection of six personal essays demonstrates what the scholarly introduction proposes: that the personal essay is both a valid genre and a magnificent bridge from informal life-writing to genuine literary accomplishment. Drawing on Phillip Lopate's differentiation of "memoiristic" essays from the more classic autobiographical form, this collection includes three of each "persuasion." First, there are three autobiographical pieces which combine narrative with exposition. In the second section of the thesis there are three memoiristic essays written entirely in a story-like style, employing such devices as dialog, character development, and detailed description.

Gridlocks and Padlocks is a collection of short fiction and personal essays whose goal is to create characters with depth in both real-world and not-entirely-real-world situations. The strength of nonfiction is the capacity to observe the writer's thinking and motivation. "Ashes to Ashes, Trust to Dust" is a personal essay that explores my struggle with the faith I was raised in, with an emphasis on how friendships and relationships have shaped my perceptions. "The List of Unacceptable Faults" is a personal essay about unwanted interactions with the opposite sex; it is an examination of men and boys through the lens of naive dissatisfaction. "Sing Me Rebecca" is a personal essay that delves into my relationship with my mentally handicapped sister. While the nonfiction writer focuses on his or her own development and struggles, a fiction writer can investigate the human condition by exploring the depth found in imagined people who face everyday situations and what characteristics and behaviors make them believable and absorbing. "Object of Study" is a short story about a girl named Taylor, who in her formative years stumbles upon a friendship between her sister and a boy she does not trust. This story examines Taylor's quirky, multi-faceted character through the actions she takes to investigate and ultimately end the friendship between a boy and her younger sister. "Crossing Fault Lines" is a work of short short fiction that focuses on three characters-a mother and her two sons-and their strained relationship. Whether writing personal essays or fiction, my goal is to create overarching conflicts that reflect people's struggle with being "stuck" in some situation in life.