Keywords: life writing, embodied theory, affect theory
The article focuses on texts that can be classified as autotheoretical, that is, they are autobiographical texts that simultaneously interrogate theoretical issues and, by their genre liminality, seek to articulate otherwise muted phenomena. The autotheoretical practice of the 2000s can be seen as a continuation of feminist personal criticism of the 1970s–1980s, such as the work of Jane Tompkins and Nancy K. Miller, and an attempt to develop forms of writing outside the prevalent academic hermeneutics of suspicion. Proceeding from the work of Mieke Bal, Roland Barthes and Adriana Cavarero, the article aims to show the productivity of this movement between embodied experience, autobiography, fiction and theoretical reflection. As such, it is also a reflection on the political and affective affordances of different genres, as well as the promise of reparative reading suggested by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick.
The theoretical discussion is illustrated with examples from two hybrid texts dedicated to an honest and at times discomforting discussion of reproduction, maternity, and the family: Maggie Nelson’s critically acclaimed „The Argonauts” (2015) and Maarja Kangro’s „Klaaslaps” („Glass Child”) (2016), an equally celebrated Estonian text. Both texts emerge as good examples of autotheoretical writing that evoke a series of political and theoretical reflections, expanding the pragmatic and affective range of autobiographical writing and exploring its aesthetic possibilities. Autotheory is micro-political, but it is precisely because of this subjective focus that it compels its readers to engage with their own experience and opinions. As such, these texts and others following their practice can contribute to enlivening today’s feminist and gender theory.
Raili Marling (b. 1973), PhD (English language and literature), College of Foreign Languages and Cultures, University of Tartu, Associate Professor, raili.marling@ut.ee
References
Ahmed, Sara 2004. The Cultural Politics of Emotion. London: Routledge.
Ahmed, Sara 2006. Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others. Durham: Duke University Press.
https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822388074
Alcoff, Linda 1988. Cultural feminism versus post-structuralism: The identity crisis of feminist theory. – Signs, kd 13, nr 3, lk 405-436.
https://doi.org/10.1086/494426
Bal, Mieke 2015. Documenting what? Auto-theory and migratory aesthetic. – A Companion to Contemporary Documentary Film. Toim Alexandra Juhasz, Alisa Lebow. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.
Balén, Julia 1993. La Ronde of children and mothers. – The Intimate Critique: Autobiograhical Literary Criticism. Toim Diane P. Freedman, Olivia Frey, Frances Murphy Zauhar. Durham: Duke University Press.
https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv11314f9.29
Balsamo, Anne Marie 1996. Public pregnancies and cultural narratives of surveillance. – A. Balsamo, Technologies of the Gendered Body: Reading Cyborg Women. Durham: Duke University Press, lk 80-115.
Barthes, Roland 1972. Critical Essays. Tlk R. Howard. [Evanston:] Northwestern University Press.
Barthes, Roland 1977. Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes. Tlk R. Howard. Berkeley: University of California Press.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-03518-2
Bhabha, Homi 2004. The Location of Culture. Abington: Routledge.
Cavarero, Adriana 2000. Relating Narratives: Storytelling and Selfhood. London: Routledge.
Du Plessis, Rachel Blau 2009. Gender buttons. – Australian Literary Studies, kd 24, nr 3-4, lk 20-38.
Eakin, Paul John 1992. Touching the World: Reference in Autobiography. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400820641
Felski, Rita 2011. Suspicious minds. – Poetics Today, kd 32, nr 2, lk 215-234.
https://doi.org/10.1215/03335372-1261208
Fischer, Clara 2016. Feminist philosophy, pragmatism, and the “turn to affect”: A geneaological critique. – Hypatia, kd 31, nr 4, lk 810-826.
https://doi.org/10.1111/hypa.12296
Gregg, Melissa, Seigworth, Gregory J. (toim) 2010. The Affect Theory Reader. Durham: Duke University Press.
https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822393047
Hemmings, Clare 2005. Invoking affect: cultural theory and the ontological turn. – Cultural Studies, kd 19, nr 5, lk 548-567.
https://doi.org/10.1080/09502380500365473
Hester, Helen [2013]. Synthetic Genders and the Limits of Micropolitics. – … ments, nr 6.
http://journalment.org/article/synthetic-genders-and-limits-micropolitics (5. VIII 2017).
Hollo, Maarja 2017. Rännak kannatuse linnades. – Keel ja Kirjandus, nr 2, lk 133-136.
Irigaray, Luce 1985. This Sex Which Is Not One. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Jaggar, Alison 1989. Love and knowledge: emotion in feminist epistemology. – Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy, kd 32, nr 2, lk 151-176.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00201748908602185
Kangro, Maarja 2016. Klaaslaps. Tallinn: Nähtamatu Ahv.
Kapil, Bhanu 2015. Ban en Banlieu. Callicoon: Nightboat Books.
Kaufmann, Jodi 2005. Autotheory: an autoethnographic reading of Foucault. – Qualitative Inquiry, kd 11, nr 4, lk 576-587.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800405276767
Kurvet-Käosaar, Leena 2016. Enese ilmnemine/ilmutamine Viivi Luige romaanis “Varjuteater”. – Adressaadi dünaamika ja kirjanduse pingeväljad. Toim L. Kurvet-Käosaar, Marin Laak. (Studia litteraria Estonica 18.) Tartu: Tartu Ülikooli Kirjastus.
Lorde, Audrey 1984. Sister Outsider. New York: Ten Speed Press.
McCrary, Micah 2015. Riding the Blinds. Micah McCrary interviews Maggie Nelson. – Los Angeles Review of Books, 26. IV.
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/riding-the-blinds/ (5. VIII 2017).
Miller, Carolyn R. 1984. Genre as social action. – Quarterly Journal of Speech, kd 70, lk 151-167.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00335638409383686
Miller, Nancy K. 1991. Getting Personal. Feminist Occasions and Other Autobiographical Acts. New York-London: Routledge.
Miller, Nancy K. 2011. What They Saved: Pieces of Jewish Past. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Modleski, Tania 1991. Feminism Without Women: Culture and Criticism in a “Postfeminist” Age. New York: Routledge.
Moi, Toril 1988. Feminism, postmodernism, and style: recent feminist criticism in the United States. – Cultural Critique, nr 9, lk 3-22.
https://doi.org/10.2307/1354232
Moi, Toril 2006. “I Am Not a Feminist, But…”: How Feminism Became the F-Word. – PMLA, kd 121, nr 5, lk 1735-1741.
https://doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2006.121.5.1735
Moi, Toril 2015. “Ma ei ole naiskirjanik”: naistest, kirjandusest ja feministlikust teooriast tänapäeval. – Ariadne Lõng, kd 15, nr 1/2, lk 153-163.
Nelson, Maggie 2015. The Argonauts. Minneapolis: Graywolf Press.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S2753906700001327
Nicholson, Linda (toim) 2006. Feministlikud vaidlused: filosoofiline mõttevahetus. Tlk Merilin Sikk. Tallinn: Tallinna Ülikooli Kirjastus.
Paige, Abby 2015. Queering the momoir. – Los Angeles Review of Books, 26. IV.
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/queering-the-momoir/ (5. VIII 2017)
Patai, Daphne, Corral, Will H. (toim) 2005. Theory’s Empire: An Anthology of Dissent. New York: Columbia University Press.
Preciado, Paul B. 2013. Testo Junkie. New York: Feminist Press.
Renders, Hans 2014. Roots of biography: from journalism to pulp to scholarly based non-fiction. – Theoretical Discussions of Biography: Approaches from History, Microhistory and Life Writing. Toim H. Renders, Binne de Haan. Leiden: Brill.
https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004274709
Rich, Adrienne 1976. Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution. New York: Norton.
Rich, Adrienne 1986. Notes Towards a Politics of Location. – A. Rich, Blood, Bread, and Poetry: Selected Prose, 1979-1985. New York: W.W. Norton, lk 210-231.
Ricoeur, Paul 1970. Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Ruddick, Sara 1995. Maternal Thinking: Towards a Politics of Peace. New York: Beacon.
Ryan, Judith 2014. The Novel After Theory. New York: Columbia University Press.
Sakova, Aija 2017. Maailm sita eituseta. – Sirp 3. II.
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky 1987. A Poem is Being Written. – Representations, nr 17, lk 110-143.
https://doi.org/10.2307/3043795
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky 2003. Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity. Durham: Duke University Press.
https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv11smq37
Seigel, Marika 2013. The Rhetoric of Pregnancy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226072074.001.0001
Showalter, Elaine 1981. Feminist criticism in the wilderness. – Critical Inquiry, kd 8, nr 2, lk 179-215.
https://doi.org/10.1086/448150
Smith, Sidonie, Watson, Julia 1998. Introduction: situating subjectivity in women’s autobiographical practices. – Women, Autobiography, Theory: A Reader. Toim S. Smith, J. Watson. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.
Tompkins, Jane 1987. Me and my shadow. – New Literary History, kd 19, nr 1, lk 169-178.
https://doi.org/10.2307/469310
Young, Iris Marion 1984. Pregnant embodiment: subjectivity and alienation. – Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, kd 9, nr 1, lk 45-62.
https://doi.org/10.1093/jmp/9.1.45
Young, Stacey 1997. Changing the Wor(l)d: Discourse, Politics and the Feminist Movement. New York: Routledge.
