Blockseminar You Can't Win Autobiographies of American Misfits

The genre of the autobiography is one that never goes out of fashion. Everyone who thinks s/he has something to say writes one, even when they are in their early twenties. In North American culture we find some notorious and famous autobiographies like that of Benjamin Franklin or Henry Adams, or, the only recently published, Mark Twain. Most of these texts tell the story of the struggling individual who in the end accomplishes something great and finds his or her place in US society. In this course we will look at the autobiographies of Americans that never really fitted in. You Can’t Win is an autobiography by Jack Black who was a thief and a drug addict at the beginning of the 20th century. Oscar Zeta Acosta’s Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo stands at the beginning of the Chicano movement. Audre Lorde called her book Zami a -biomythography” that engages with the political struggles of the 1950s and 60s while telling her life-story with mythical elements. Ariel Dorfman is probably the best example of someone standing between different cultures and languages all his life. Heading South, Looking North alternates between narrating his upbringing in South America and the US and the events of September 11, 1973 in Santiago de Chile. Requirements : Reading the assignments. Handing in 4 response papers. Course Readings : Jack Black. You Can’t Win. 1926. AKPress, 2000. ISBN: 978-1902593029 Oscar Acosta. Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo. 1972. Vintage, 1989. ISBN: 978-0679722137. Audre Lorde. Zami: A New Spelling of My Name. 1982. Rivers Oram Press, 2003. ISBN: 978-0863584435. Ariel Dorfman. Heading South, Looking North: A Bilingual Journey. Penguin, 1999. ISBN: 978-0140282535 Anglistik Universität Duisburg-Essen WS 2011/12 Bachelor, Bachelor Greiffenstern Alexander