ABSTRACT

Auto/biographical narratives of the Americas are marked by the underlying themes of movement and belonging. This collection proposes that the impact of the historic or contemporary movement of peoples to, in, and from the Americas—whether chosen or forced—motivates the ways in which identities are constructed in this contested space. Such movement results in a cyclical quest to belong, and to understand belonging, that reverberates through narratives of the Americas. The volume brings together essays written from diverse national, cultural, linguistic, and disciplinary perspectives to trace these transnational motifs in life writing across the Americas. Drawing on international scholars from the seemingly disparate regions of the Americas—North America, the Caribbean, and Latin America—this book extends critical theories of life writing beyond limiting national boundaries. The scholarship included approaches narrative inquiry from the fields of literature, linguistics, history, art history, sociology, anthropology, political science, pedagogy, gender studies, critical race studies, and indigenous studies. As a whole, this volume advances discourse in auto/biography studies, life writing, and identity studies by locating transnational themes in narratives of the Americas and placing them in international and interdisciplinary conversations.

chapter |19 pages

Introduction

Reading beyond Borders—Movement and Belonging in the Americas

chapter |18 pages

Timescapes, Backpacks, Networks

Writing Lives across the Americas

chapter |16 pages

Art, Identity, and Narration

Autobiographical Quests beyond National Limits

chapter |19 pages

A Transnational Autobiographical Pact

The Canada Reads 2012 Controversy

chapter |17 pages

Between Nations, Between Selves

Intertextuality and Diasporic Identity in Jamaica Kincaid's Among Flowers

chapter |22 pages

Talking beyond Borders

Oral Histories of Becoming Politically Left in Latin America, 1960–1990

chapter |15 pages

Mapping out a Treacherous Terrain

Working at the Crossroads of Autobiographical Studies and Inter-American Literary Studies

chapter |22 pages

Decolonial Translation in Embodied Auto/Biographical Indigenous Performance

Monique Mojica's Chocolate Woman Dreams the Milky Way

chapter |19 pages

“See How I Talk about the Slavemaster”

Searching for “We” in Afro-Curaçaoan Oral Histories

chapter |18 pages

The Paradoxical Demand for Realism

Building National Identity in Brazilian Literatures

chapter |21 pages

“Forward!”

National Identity, Animalographies, and the Ethics of Representation in the Posthuman Imaginary