This volume offers a sampling of approaches to the study of life-writing, bringing together eminent scholars and writers to reflect on specific examples of life-writing to reflect broader themes within the genre.

In readings that move from personal diaries and personal letters through autobiography and biography that assumes a public readership, and finally to the essay, the reader is led through an ever-widening audience. Starting with pieces that draw entirely on the writer's life to biography requiring research into another person's life, the reader moves from subjective to objective experience and finally to the essay that attempts to put that experience into a larger context. The selections are followed by "Musings" which suggest features of the writing that the reader might imitate and recommendations for writing. "Connections" presents ways in which individual pieces might be paired with others to make interesting comparisons and to generate other writing ideas. A range of familiar and unfamiliar selections are organized from the subjective to the objective and become increasingly difficult. They present a wide range of writing styles to allow readers to become comfortable with many styles. In addition, these selections represent a variety of cultures and historical periods to give readers an appreciation of other cultures and a sense of history. A valuable book for any reader who wishes to improve their writing skills by reading a variety of selections by a range of writers.

On the surface, the use of photography in autobiography appears to have a straightforward purpose: to illustrate and corroborate the text. But in the wake of poststructuralism, the role of photography in autobiography is far from simple or one-dimensional

projects, and an extensive bibliography. --Book Jacket.

Our lives are increasingly on display in public, but the ethical issues involved in presenting such revelations remain largely unexamined. How can life writing do good, and how can it cause harm? The eleven essays here explore such questions.

The importance of personal storytelling in contemporary culture and politics In an age where our experiences are processed and filtered through a wide variety of mediums, both digital and physical, how do we tell our own story? How do we “get a life,” make sense of who we are and the way we live, and communicate that to others? Stories of the Self takes the literary study of autobiography and opens it up to a broad and fascinating range of material practices beyond the book, investigating the manifold ways people are documenting themselves in contemporary culture. Anna Poletti explores Andy Warhol’s Time Capsules, a collection of six hundred cardboard boxes filled with text objects from the artist’s everyday life; the mid-aughts crowdsourced digital archive PostSecret; queer zine culture and its practices of remixing and collaging; and the bureaucratic processes surrounding surveillance dossiers. Stories of the Self argues that while there is a strong emphasis on the importance of personal storytelling in contemporary culture and politics, mediation is just as important in establishing the credibility and legibility of life writing. Poletti argues that the very media used for writing our lives intrinsically shapes how we are seen to matter.

This is the first substantial reference work in English on the various forms that constitute "life writing." As this term suggests, the Encyclopedia explores not only autobiography and biography proper, but also letters, diaries, memoirs, family histories, case histories, and other ways in which individual lives have been recorded and structured. It includes entries on genres and subgenres, national and regional traditions from around the world, and important auto-biographical writers, as well as articles on related areas such as oral history, anthropology, testimonies, and the representation of life stories in non-verbal art forms.