Threads of Life: Autobiography and the Will

Many autobiographers share profound questions about human life with their readers—questions like: To what extent was my life imposed on me? To what extent did I bring it about through particular choices and actions, through the activity of my own will? Indeed, the issue of the will is central to autobiographical writing, and some of the greatest autobiographies give extended consideration to the will—its nature; its powers; its limitations; the forms of freedom, constraint, and expression it finds in various cultures; its role in particular human lives. In this new study, unprecedented in subject and scope, Richard Freadman offers the first sustained account of how changing theological, philosophical, and psychological accounts of the human will have been reflected in the writing of autobiography, and of how autobiography in its turn has helped shape various understandings of the will. Early chapters trace narrative representations of the will from antiquity (the Greeks and Augustine) to postmodernism (Derrida and Barthes), with particular emphasis on late modernity's culture of the will. Later chapters then present detailed and powerfully original readings of autobiographical texts by Louis Althusser, Roland Barthes, B. F. Skinner, Ernest Hemingway, Simone de Beauvoir, Arthur Koestler, Stephen Spender, and Diana Trilling.Freadman's interdisciplinary approach to autobiography and the will includes a theoretical defense of the view that autobiographers are, in varying degrees, agents in their own texts. Threads of Life argues that late modernity has inherited deeply conflicted attitudes to the will. Freadman suggests that these attitudes, now deeply embedded in contemporary cultural discourse, need reexamining. In this, he contends, 'reflective autobiography' has an important part to play.

Freadman, Richard

Biographies & Memoirs

University of Chicago Press

Many autobiographers share profound questions about human life with their readersâ€”questions like: To what extent was my life imposed on me? To what extent did I bring it about through particular choices and actions, through the activity of my own will? Indeed, the issue of the will is central to autobiographical writing, and some of the greatest autobiographies give extended consideration to the willâ€”its nature; its powers; its limitations; the forms of freedom, constraint, and expression it finds in various cultures; its role in particular human lives.In this new study, unprecedented in subject and scope, Richard Freadman offers the first sustained account of how changing theological, philosophical, and psychological accounts of the human will have been reflected in the writing of autobiography, and of how autobiography in its turn has helped shape various understandings of the will. Early chapters trace narrative representations of the will from antiquity (the Greeks and Augustine) to postmodernism (Derrida and Barthes), with particular emphasis on late modernity's culture of the will. Later chapters then present detailed and powerfully original readings of autobiographical texts by Louis Althusser, Roland Barthes, B. F. Skinner, Ernest Hemingway, Simone de Beauvoir, Arthur Koestler, Stephen Spender, and Diana Trilling.Freadman's interdisciplinary approach to autobiography and the will includes a theoretical defense of the view that autobiographers are, in varying degrees, agents in their own texts. Threads of Life argues that late modernity has inherited deeply conflicted attitudes to the will. Freadman suggests that these attitudes, now deeply embedded in contemporary cultural discourse, need reexamining. In this, he contends, 'reflective autobiography' has an important part to play.

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

Eliot, James and the Fictional Self: A Study in Character and Narration

St. Martin's Press, New York

Eliot, James, and the fictional self: A study in character and narration

Macmillan

<p>Re-thinking Theory offers a bold approach to literary studies, itself explicitly theoretical and yet making a searching critique of the modes, concepts and movements which comprise literary theory. Discussing key concepts such as ideology, signification and discourse, and analysing schools including that of F. R. Leavis, Althusserian Marxism, Derridean and Foucaultian poststructuralism, and New Historicism, the authors argue that there are major deficiencies in the conceptual foundations and the literary and political implications of much literary theory. These deficiencies are ascribed principally to three aspects of theoretical schools: the commitment to a non-referential view of language, the rejection of substantive accounts of the individual, and a repudiation of moral and aesthetic evaluation. The 'alternative account' offered by Professors Freadman and Miller incorporates the values renounced by this kind of literary theory and places a central emphasis on ethical discourse.</p>

Re-Thinking Theory: A Critique of Contemporary Literary Theory and an Alternative Account

Miller, Seumas

Cambridge University Press

<p>This Crazy Thing A Life is the first book-length study of Australian Jewish autobiographical writings. The book makes a substantial contribution to multicultural and migrant writing, and is an engaging look at what it means to be both Jewish and Australian. Richard Freadman's richly reflective work interweaves the past and present, events and attitudes, literary theory and narrative forms to address important and often profoundly moving topics, such as Holocaust memory, migrant autobiography, diaspora studies, and multiculturalism from a variety of viewpoints - from humble, self-published memoirs by amateur chroniclers to celebrated releases by high-profile authors.</p>

This Crazy Thing A Life: Australian Jewish Autobiography

UWA Publishing

Contemporary

PALGRAVE~MACMILLAN

High Noon at Starbucks: And Other Stories

Literary

Hybrid Publishers

Stepladder to Hindsight

Memoirs

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