Pub Date : 2023-04-19DOI: 10.1080/14484528.2023.2202329
Kanchanakesi Warnapala
{"title":"Memoir and Respectable Femininity: Shirani A. Bandaranayake's Hold Me in Contempt","authors":"Kanchanakesi Warnapala","doi":"10.1080/14484528.2023.2202329","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14484528.2023.2202329","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43797,"journal":{"name":"Life Writing","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-04-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48675570","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-14DOI: 10.1080/14484528.2023.2201685
Maizen Wang
{"title":"Crossing the Bamboo Curtain: Occidentalism and the English Language in Cultural Revolution Memoirs","authors":"Maizen Wang","doi":"10.1080/14484528.2023.2201685","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14484528.2023.2201685","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43797,"journal":{"name":"Life Writing","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-04-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45038057","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-03-12DOI: 10.1080/14484528.2023.2185805
Rosemary Williamson, Lili Pâquet
ABSTRACT Between 2010 and 2018, four Australian prime ministers were removed from office outside of a federal election, by leadership spills initiated by their party colleagues. Each of the prime ministers—Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull—delivered a televised speech shortly after the leadership spill. The speeches provided an early opportunity, long before the preparation of any book-length political memoir, for each departing prime minister to narrate their political life and affirm their political legacy and identity. The speeches can be conceptualised as a rhetorical genre of life narrative in an Australian context. Applying Carolyn R. Miller’s theory of genre as social action (“Genre as Social Action.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 70: 151–167. 10.1080/00335638409383686.) confirms the speeches as a rhetorical genre, not because of their similarities in form and content but because they respond to the same recurring rhetorical situation—the leadership spill—and have shared social functions in their assertion of the rhetor’s (speaker’s) achievements, integrity and authenticity. All address the past, present and future; project a defining aspect of character; refer to significant others; and place life as prime minister in other contexts. In doing so, the speeches resemble but differ from some other forms of life narrative.
{"title":"Life as Prime Minister: A Genre Study of Speeches Made by Australian Prime Ministers Following Leadership Spills","authors":"Rosemary Williamson, Lili Pâquet","doi":"10.1080/14484528.2023.2185805","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14484528.2023.2185805","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Between 2010 and 2018, four Australian prime ministers were removed from office outside of a federal election, by leadership spills initiated by their party colleagues. Each of the prime ministers—Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull—delivered a televised speech shortly after the leadership spill. The speeches provided an early opportunity, long before the preparation of any book-length political memoir, for each departing prime minister to narrate their political life and affirm their political legacy and identity. The speeches can be conceptualised as a rhetorical genre of life narrative in an Australian context. Applying Carolyn R. Miller’s theory of genre as social action (“Genre as Social Action.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 70: 151–167. 10.1080/00335638409383686.) confirms the speeches as a rhetorical genre, not because of their similarities in form and content but because they respond to the same recurring rhetorical situation—the leadership spill—and have shared social functions in their assertion of the rhetor’s (speaker’s) achievements, integrity and authenticity. All address the past, present and future; project a defining aspect of character; refer to significant others; and place life as prime minister in other contexts. In doing so, the speeches resemble but differ from some other forms of life narrative.","PeriodicalId":43797,"journal":{"name":"Life Writing","volume":"20 1","pages":"613 - 628"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45578673","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-02DOI: 10.1080/14484528.2023.2173020
Norbert Bugeja
ABSTRACT This article discusses Hisham Matar's second work of memoir, A Month in Siena in terms of its complex, longer engagement with the disappearance of Matar's dissident father, its aftermath, and the son's own relation to his father's ultimate fate. Attempting to articulate what may be an unrealisable form of grief, Matar seeks to elicit from the spaces of the medieval Sienese Republic an aesthetic grammar by means of which the process of surviving with(in) a forcibly suspended relation with his absent forebear may be spelt out. Matar's memoir mobilises the ability of memory to interpellate the act of self-narrative in the service of achieving a mourning-in-progress. Referencing the work of Massimo Cacciari, T.J. Clark, Mark Dooley, John Baldacchino and Philippe D’Averio, the author discusses Matar's contemplations of works from the Sienese School, including those of Ambrogio Lorenzetti and Duccio di Buoninsegna. The article opens up Matar's ekphrastic journey, suggesting that through it, art holds forth a configuration of power that is expansive in character: one whose semantic vista is as affirmative in its potential for articulating a complex, often damaged political world as the Libyan regime's own silence about his father is negatingly labyrinthine.
本文讨论了希沙姆·马塔尔的第二部回忆录《锡耶纳的一个月》,从复杂的角度,更深入地探讨了马塔尔持不同政见的父亲的失踪,其后果,以及儿子自己与父亲最终命运的关系。试图阐明什么可能是一种无法实现的悲伤形式,Matar试图从中世纪的锡耶纳共和国的空间中引出一种美学语法,通过这种语法,他与他缺席的祖先的关系被强行搁置,生存的过程可能会被阐明。马塔尔的回忆录调动了记忆的能力来质问自我叙述的行为,以实现一种正在进行的哀悼。参考Massimo Cacciari, T.J. Clark, Mark Dooley, John Baldacchino和Philippe D 'Averio的作品,作者讨论了Matar对锡耶纳学派作品的思考,包括Ambrogio Lorenzetti和Duccio di Buoninsegna的作品。这篇文章打开了马塔尔的语言之旅,暗示通过它,艺术展示了一种具有扩张性的权力配置:一种语义上的前景,在表达一个复杂的、经常受到破坏的政治世界方面具有肯定的潜力,就像利比亚政权对他父亲的沉默是否定的迷宫一样。
{"title":"The Aesthetic of an Orphaned Memory: Journeying Across the ‘Lit-Up Stage’ of Hisham Matar's Siena","authors":"Norbert Bugeja","doi":"10.1080/14484528.2023.2173020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14484528.2023.2173020","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article discusses Hisham Matar's second work of memoir, A Month in Siena in terms of its complex, longer engagement with the disappearance of Matar's dissident father, its aftermath, and the son's own relation to his father's ultimate fate. Attempting to articulate what may be an unrealisable form of grief, Matar seeks to elicit from the spaces of the medieval Sienese Republic an aesthetic grammar by means of which the process of surviving with(in) a forcibly suspended relation with his absent forebear may be spelt out. Matar's memoir mobilises the ability of memory to interpellate the act of self-narrative in the service of achieving a mourning-in-progress. Referencing the work of Massimo Cacciari, T.J. Clark, Mark Dooley, John Baldacchino and Philippe D’Averio, the author discusses Matar's contemplations of works from the Sienese School, including those of Ambrogio Lorenzetti and Duccio di Buoninsegna. The article opens up Matar's ekphrastic journey, suggesting that through it, art holds forth a configuration of power that is expansive in character: one whose semantic vista is as affirmative in its potential for articulating a complex, often damaged political world as the Libyan regime's own silence about his father is negatingly labyrinthine.","PeriodicalId":43797,"journal":{"name":"Life Writing","volume":"20 1","pages":"599 - 612"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-02-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44423449","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-15DOI: 10.1080/14484528.2023.2165276
N. Chedid
ABSTRACT In this lived narrative, I revisit my youngest son’s dramatic departure from Lebanon to the US, hours before the Beirut Port explosion on 4 August 2020. Against the backdrop of the calamitous year that follows, the essential processing of the emotional ills of mother–child separation—aggravated by the trauma of the port disaster and a progressive implosion of society—is resurrected as Lebanon recognises the one-year anniversary of the catastrophe. This experience binds to those of countless Lebanese families, past and present, braving the departure of a child who both seeks and embodies a hoped-for brighter future. Even as my story dwells in universal themes, it unravels within a unique personal context. I am myself an immigrant, having moved nine years ago with my three sons from Boston to Byblos to fulfil the dying wish of my late husband, who escaped Lebanon during its civil war to settle in America: that we live out our lives with his extended family in Lebanon. In the shadow of his father’s remembrance, my son’s expatriation forces the reckoning with my unresolved grief and uncertainty, even as I acknowledge, too, fleeting fragments of beauty—redemptory gifts revealed through the ageless rituals of everyday life.
{"title":"Sickness of Separation: Reflections on Expatriation, Repatriation, and Motherhood","authors":"N. Chedid","doi":"10.1080/14484528.2023.2165276","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14484528.2023.2165276","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In this lived narrative, I revisit my youngest son’s dramatic departure from Lebanon to the US, hours before the Beirut Port explosion on 4 August 2020. Against the backdrop of the calamitous year that follows, the essential processing of the emotional ills of mother–child separation—aggravated by the trauma of the port disaster and a progressive implosion of society—is resurrected as Lebanon recognises the one-year anniversary of the catastrophe. This experience binds to those of countless Lebanese families, past and present, braving the departure of a child who both seeks and embodies a hoped-for brighter future. Even as my story dwells in universal themes, it unravels within a unique personal context. I am myself an immigrant, having moved nine years ago with my three sons from Boston to Byblos to fulfil the dying wish of my late husband, who escaped Lebanon during its civil war to settle in America: that we live out our lives with his extended family in Lebanon. In the shadow of his father’s remembrance, my son’s expatriation forces the reckoning with my unresolved grief and uncertainty, even as I acknowledge, too, fleeting fragments of beauty—redemptory gifts revealed through the ageless rituals of everyday life.","PeriodicalId":43797,"journal":{"name":"Life Writing","volume":"20 1","pages":"759 - 772"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-01-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48155466","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-05DOI: 10.1080/14484528.2022.2152264
Jehan Bseiso
ABSTRACT In this autobiographical essay, I examine the layers of solace and disruption I experienced in 20 years of walking in Beirut, and also falling all over the city. I explore how my regular walks on the sea-front corniche calmed my anxiety and soothed my spirit, while at the same time Beirut’s broken pavements, unlit streets, and exposed manholes skinned, sprained, twisted, and bloodied my body over and over again. As the situation deteriorated episodically through wars, neglect, and corruption, especially after the 4 August 2020 explosion, walking became an act of witnessing; it enabled the curation of a mental-visual archive contrasting my memories of the city with the catalogue of ills it revealed. In a Beirut hit by pandemic, economic crisis, and political deadlock, I eventually restricted my walks to daylight hours, often literally walking in small circles, as the city plunged into darkness and insecurity. Despite my frequent falls, and the dangers of a pedestrian life in Beirut, walking remained a source of great consolation and wonder: a daily ritual of erasing and remaking the city through stories and moments, disappointments and discoveries.
{"title":"Drink the Sea: Twenty Years of Walking and Falling in Beirut","authors":"Jehan Bseiso","doi":"10.1080/14484528.2022.2152264","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14484528.2022.2152264","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In this autobiographical essay, I examine the layers of solace and disruption I experienced in 20 years of walking in Beirut, and also falling all over the city. I explore how my regular walks on the sea-front corniche calmed my anxiety and soothed my spirit, while at the same time Beirut’s broken pavements, unlit streets, and exposed manholes skinned, sprained, twisted, and bloodied my body over and over again. As the situation deteriorated episodically through wars, neglect, and corruption, especially after the 4 August 2020 explosion, walking became an act of witnessing; it enabled the curation of a mental-visual archive contrasting my memories of the city with the catalogue of ills it revealed. In a Beirut hit by pandemic, economic crisis, and political deadlock, I eventually restricted my walks to daylight hours, often literally walking in small circles, as the city plunged into darkness and insecurity. Despite my frequent falls, and the dangers of a pedestrian life in Beirut, walking remained a source of great consolation and wonder: a daily ritual of erasing and remaking the city through stories and moments, disappointments and discoveries.","PeriodicalId":43797,"journal":{"name":"Life Writing","volume":"20 1","pages":"727 - 733"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-01-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46378057","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-04DOI: 10.1080/14484528.2022.2159754
J. Tronto
{"title":"How I Lost My Mother: A Story of Life, Care and Dying","authors":"J. Tronto","doi":"10.1080/14484528.2022.2159754","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14484528.2022.2159754","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43797,"journal":{"name":"Life Writing","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-01-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44578007","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}