ABSTRACT

This collection of short essays provides a rigorous, rich, collaborative space in which scholars and practitioners debate the value of different methodological approaches to the study of life narratives and explore a diverse range of interdisciplinary methods. Auto/biography studies has been one of the most vibrant sub-disciplines to emerge in the humanities and social sciences in the past decade, providing significant links between disciplines including literary studies, languages, linguistics, digital humanities, medical humanities, creative writing, history, gender studies, education, sociology, and anthropology.

The essays in this collection position auto/biography as a key discipline for modelling interdisciplinary approaches to methodology and ask: what original and important thinking can auto/biography studies bring to discussions of methodology for literary studies and beyond? And how does the diversity of methodological interventions in auto/biography studies build a strong and diverse research discipline? In including some of auto/biography’s leading international scholars alongside emerging scholars, and exploring key subgenres and practices, this collection showcases knowledge about what we do when engaging in auto/biographical research. Research Methodologies for Auto/biography Studies offers a series of case studies that explore the research practices, reflective behaviours, and ethical considerations that inform auto/biographical research.

chapter |10 pages

What We Do When We Do Life Writing

Methodologies for Auto/Biography Now

part |111 pages

Forms

chapter 1|6 pages

Writing Memoir

chapter 3|8 pages

Zines

chapter 4|7 pages

Objects and Things

chapter 5|8 pages

Social, Media, Life Writing

Online Lives at Scale, Up Close, and In Context

chapter 7|7 pages

Biography

chapter 9|7 pages

Working With Family Histories

chapter 10|7 pages

Tracing Emotional Bonds in Family Letters

A Pursuit of an Epistolary Melody

chapter 12|7 pages

Autoethnographic Life Writing

Reaching Beyond, Crossing Over

chapter 14|7 pages

Performing and Broadcasting Lives

Auto/Biographical Testimonies in Theatre and Radio

chapter 15|6 pages

Big Data and Self-Tracking

Research Trajectories

part |121 pages

Frameworks

chapter 16|7 pages

Another Story

chapter 19|12 pages

Negotiated Truths and Iterative Practice in Action

The Women in Conflict Expressive Life Writing Project

chapter 22|7 pages

Genetics and Auto/Biography

chapter 23|7 pages

Doing Disability Autobiography

Introducing Reading Group Methodology as Feminist Disability Praxis

chapter 24|7 pages

Sanctioning Subjectivity

Navigating Low-Risk Human Ethics Approval

chapter 25|7 pages

Girls' Auto/Biographical Media

The Importance of Audience Reception in Studying Undervalued Life Narrative

chapter 26|6 pages

Locating Diasporic Lives

Beyond Textual Boundaries

chapter 27|7 pages

The Diary as a Life Story

Working With Documents of Family and Migration

chapter 30|8 pages

Ecocriticism and Life Narrative

part |9 pages

Afterword

chapter 31|7 pages

The Box in the Attic

Memoir, Methodology, and Family Archives