In memoir, apparently, you have to do with what you've got.  You
can't order a new shipment of materials.  You're on a desert island,
sorting your memories into little piles:  Bobbie Ann Mason -
Stranger than Fiction – 1998.    This class will question how gender
impacts memory and the craft of the memoir.  How does gender
determine the questions we ask of autobiography?  What gendered
choices have authors made as they constructed their texts? What
forms? What metaphors? What issues? What similarities do we see
between memoirs and what don’t we see?   This course will also
examine the experience of gender interacts with a variety of social,
economic, political, and sexual roles in order to understand how
gender shapes experience. The exploration will include the influence
of class, region, race, and ethnicity on modern memoir as they
intertwine with gender, generation, and historical context.   Texts
will include:   Dorothy Allison; Allison Bechdel; Phoebe Gloeckner;
Lucy Grealy; Dave Eggers; Jane Gallop; Joyce Johnson; Alice Kaplan;
Mary Karr; Brad Land; Loran Sage; Rebecca Walker; Marjane Sartrape;
Edmund White; Richard Wright and others.