What do a possessed nun, a Caribbean novelist, and a famous French filmmaker have in common? They each, at a point in their lives, decided
to create an autobiography. While these autobiographies are as different from one another as the people who wrote them, each express a
universal human desire to understand one’s place in an ever-changing world, and to say, “I was here.” In The Art of the Autobiography, we will
read autobiographical works spanning nearly four centuries, multiple continents, and forms as different as books, social media, film, reality tv,
and even quilting as we attempt to understand the many ways in which a person seeks to tell their story. Throughout the semester, we will
explore the complicated divide between truth and fiction by redefining the boundaries of the autobiography as a genre and interacting with
these texts on literary, historical, and personal levels. As we delve into the autobiographical accounts of others, we will also turn our gaze
inwards: how do we see ourselves within our world, and how do we wish to convey our lived experiences with others? While we are seeking to
understand the self-portraits of others, we can begin to create our own.