The Diary as Literature Through the Lens of Multiculturalism in America
Due Date: 11-01-2018
Abstracts are invited for a book that focuses on diary writing as a quasi-literary genre that includes autobiography, biography, memoir, correspondence, travel literature, and more. The book will examine the diarist’s text because it speaks the truth of the appearance of things. The diarist’s account is imaginative writing, social, and political history. Diary writing includes events that add up to a story with meaning, a theme, and style. Diary writing is creating “real” fictions of one’s self. For the diarist, the diary becomes a transnational space in which an intersection of cultures, languages, and peoples helps diarists understand themselves and the world they live in.
Through the lens of the diary, this book will discuss how diarists, writers, and poets reflect on multiculturalism and intercultural relations. Subjects and themes include identity, language, race, class, culture, gender, religion, sexuality, and nationality of American minorities who use the diary to help them find their own expressive language, explore their identity, and understand themselves, their intimate relationships, and the world around them. Since the diary is an autobiographical text, the book will include the study of autobiography, poetry, fiction, and nonfiction.
Themes and ideas that could be examined in each chapter include
- diaries that give voice to the identity of the diarist or illustrate a hidden identity;
- the diary as a confessional through the lens of Foucault: confessions turn both on what can be openly spoken about and what is forbidden to name;
- the role of the diary as autobiography, a writer’s workshop, a companion, and a creative space; or
- cultural authenticity in fictional diaries such as Maya’s Notebook, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, and The Golden Notebook.
Please submit a 100-word bio and 500-word abstract with title by 1 November 2018 to Angela Hooks (angelarhooks@gmail.com).