Winner of the prestigious Casa de las Américas Prize, this work spins a heartfelt story of an improbable relationship between an anthropologist and her charismatic Indigenous father. When Aparecida Vilaça first traveled down the remote Negro River in Amazonia, she expected to co…
This book offers intimate readings of a diverse range of global autobiographical literature with an emphasis on the (re)presentation of the physical body. The twelve texts presented here include philosophical autobiography (Nietzsche), autobiographies of self-experimentation (Ga…
by Bourgois, Philippe I., Schonberg, Jeff
fromCalifornia series in public anthropology
This powerful study immerses the reader in the world of homelessness and drug addiction in the contemporary United States. For over a decade Philippe Bourgois and Jeff Schonberg followed a social network of two dozen heroin injectors and crack smokers on the streets of San Franc…
In the late nineteenth century, Scandinavian urban dwellers developed a passion for a new, utterly modern sort of visual spectacle: objects and effigies brought to life in astonishingly detailed, realistic scenes. The period 1880-1910 was the popular high point of mannequin disp…
Born into a distinguished aristocratic family of the old Habsburg Empire, Hermynia Zur Mühlen spent much of her childhood and early youth travelling in Europe and North Africa with her diplomat father. Never comfortable with the traditional roles women were expected to play, she…
Autism Spectrum Disorder is one of the most controversial behavioral disorders in America, and I have it. Diagnosed at a young age with Asperger’s Syndrome, a now defunct diagnosis, I have been marked as different, weird, a freak. In this thesis I will reflect on the autistic ex…
Eudora Welty’s memoir One Writer’s Beginnings conveys the author’s childhood enchantment with reading and education. Critical engagement with the text often centers its impact on readings of her fiction or Welty’s relationship to other memoirists. I argue, however, that One Writ…
There is a rich body of scholarship on Black women’s fiction and poetry that analyzes its engagements with aesthetic forms as well as the themes of memory and history. Likewise, Black women’s memoir and autobiography have been read for their illustrations of Black feminist polit…
It starts with my mother. Her stories. A single seed. A seed I sucked in my mouth in order to remember the flavor of an orange. As a child, I listened to my mother's stories and later, as an adult, I began writing these stories down. Big Road is a memoir blending family history …
This qualitative self-study explores the relationship between the personal and professional dimensions of a teacher's life that shape identity and praxis. The question driving the research is: How have my life experiences (personal and professional) contributed, or not, to my id…
This dissertation argues that Victorian subjects’ increased idealization of childhood as a distinct phase of life marked by freedom, helplessness, innocence, and unproductiveness relied upon the figure of the dead child. Working through literary texts, in conjunction with cultur…
Life Between the Bridges: A Personal History of San Francisco is a hybrid work of history, memoir, and travel writing in which I seek to examine the city of San Francisco through a variety of lenses. The prologue provides an overview of experiences a newcomer to San Francisco mi…
Just Trash is a creative dissertation comprised of four personal essays that take on various questions of identity and empathy that arise when a non-binary bisexual woman grows up in a Southern evangelical, working-class home, an environment that is politically, religiously, reg…
This, My Breath, is a creative collection of memories gathered along the seasons in my life–mostly from my formative years. The stories highlight the patient, unconditional love my parents shared, and the way it has influenced me throughout my life. The stories are about life, l…
This dissertation proposes the analysis of the Russian memoirist tradition and its key trends. It includes a creative component representing memories of life during the late Soviet and post-Soviet period and explores how this creative work fits into the tradition of Russian life…
When the Warsaw Ghetto was demolished by German forces towards the end of World War II, there were few physical traces of the Ghetto left standing. As such, both historians and the public must look to other types of sources to understand what life and death were like for the inh…