In the last half century the categories of fiction and autobiography have been destabilized by a series of practices that center a more and more loosely identifiable first person. Classic forms of fiction and autobiography appear increasingly marginalized in favor of “creative nonfiction,” “auto-fiction,” “auto-theory,” and “critical fabulation.”
Overlapping with this literary trend is a troubling of the distinction between truth and fiction, evident in phenomena as different as the credibility of documentary and mediatized fact and challenges to authentic creation by artificial intelligence. It might be argued that the convergence of auto-inflected writing and fictionalized fact signal an epistemic shift as significant as Descartes’ thinking “I.”
“Why Me?” was a two-day colloquium that assembled writers and thinkers to examine the intellectual and epistemological impact of a reliance on first-person narration, or relation, that operates on the shifting sands of both subject formation and objective reality.
Moderator: Kevin Quashie (Brown University)
Marie Darrieussecq, “It’s Me and It’s Not Me: Exploring the Burrows of the I”
• Why Me? - “It’s Me and...
Evie Shockley, “When and Where ‘I’ Enters”
• Why Me? - “When and Wh...
Robyn Wiegman, “Why Not Me? Autotheory’s (Auto)Fictions”
• Why Me? - “Why Not Me?...
Colloquium playlist:
• Why Me? - First-Person...
Recorded on April 12 and 13, 2024. Hosted by the Cogut Institute for the Humanities with the support of a Faculty Seed Grant from the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women; the Departments of Comparative Literature, English, French and Francophone Studies, Hispanic Studies, Literary Arts, and Theatre Arts and Performance Studies; the Humanities Initiative Programming Fund; and the Charles K. Colver Lectureships and Publications. Convened by Timothy Bewes and David Wills with Michelle Clayton and Kevin Quashie.