Burdens of Proof: Faith, Doubt, and Identity in Autobiography
By Susanna Egan
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
Autobiographical impostures, once they come to light, appear to us as outrageous, scandalous. They confuse lived and textual identity (the person in the world and the character in the text) and call into question what we believe, what we doubt, and how we receive information. In the process, they tell us a lot about cultural norms and anxieties. Burdens of Proof: Faith, Doubt, and Identity in Autobiography examines a broad range of impostures in the United States, Canada, and Europe, and asks about each one: Why this particular imposture? Why here and now?
Susanna Egan’s historical survey of texts from early Christendom to the nineteenth century provides an understanding of the author in relation to the text and shows how plagiarism and other false claims have not always been regarded as the frauds we consider them today. She then explores the role of the media in the creation of much contemporary imposture, examining in particular the cases of Jumana Hanna, Norma Khouri, and James Frey. The book also addresses ethnic imposture, deliberate fictions, plagiarism, and ghostwriting, all of which raise moral, legal, historical, and cultural issues. Egan concludes the volume with an examination of how historiography and law failed to support the identities of European Jews during World War II, creating sufficient instability in Jewish identity and doubt about Jewish wartime experience that the impostor could step in. This textual erasure of the Jews of Europe and the refashioning of their experiences in fraudulent texts are examples of imposture as an outcrop of extreme identity crisis.
The first to examine these issues in North America and Europe, Burdens of Proof will be of interest to scholars of life writing and cultural studies.
Susanna Egan
Susanna Egan is a professor in the department of English at the University of British Columbia. Her most recent monograph is titled Mirror Talk: Genres of Crisis in Contemporary Autobiography.
Related to Burdens of Proof
Titles in the series (57)
The Memory of Water Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWorking Memory: Women and Work in World War II Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKinds of Winter: Four Solo Journeys by Dogteam in Canada’s Northwest Territories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBasements and Attics, Closets and Cyberspace: Explorations in Canadian Women’s Archives Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Boom!: Manufacturing Memoir for the Popular Market Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNot the Whole Story: Challenging the Single Mother Narrative Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMotherlode: A Mosaic of Dutch Wartime Experience Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPursuing Giraffe: A 1950s Adventure Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In the Unlikeliest of Places: How Nachman Libeskind Survived the Nazis, Gulags, and Soviet Communism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStreet Angel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bird-Bent Grass: A Memoir, in Pieces Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Basilian Priesthood: 1961 to 1967 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWait Time: A Memoir of Cancer Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCanadian Graphic: Picturing Life Narratives Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTravels and Identities: Elizabeth and Adam Shortt in Europe, 1911 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBurdens of Proof: Faith, Doubt, and Identity in Autobiography Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Life Writings of Mary Baker McQuesten: Victorian Matriarch Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAnd Peace Never Came Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFood That Really Schmecks Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Incorrigible Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Johanna Krause Twice Persecuted: Surviving in Nazi Germany and Communist East Germany Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Watermelon Syrup: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Curtain: Witness and Memory in Wartime Holland Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBearing Witness: Living with Ovarian Cancer Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings“I Want to Join Your Club”: Letters from Rural Children, 1900-1920 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Wartime Letters of Leslie and Cecil Frost, 1915-1919 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBorrowed Tongues: Life Writing, Migration, and Translation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Unwritten Diary of Israel Unger: Revised Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWorking in Women’s Archives: Researching Women’s Private Literature and Archival Documents Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHaven’t Any News: Ruby’s Letters from the Fifties Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related ebooks
Burdens of Proof: Faith, Doubt, and Identity in Autobiography Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Birth of Modern Belief: Faith and Judgment from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hollywood Exiles in Europe: The Blacklist and Cold War Film Culture Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAutonomy After Auschwitz: Adorno, German Idealism, and Modernity Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNature, Human Nature, and Human Difference: Race in Early Modern Philosophy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Shrinking Island: Modernism and National Culture in England Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Virtues of Abandon: An Anti-Individualist History of the French Enlightenment Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOrthodox by Design: Judaism, Print Politics, and the ArtScroll Revolution Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Sleep of Behemoth: Disputing Peace and Violence in Medieval Europe, 1000–1200 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Writing Occupation: Jewish Émigré Voices in Wartime France Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsElizabeth Bowen: A Literary Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Politics of Islamophobia: Race, Power and Fantasy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDouble Agents: Espionage, Literature, and Liminal Citizens Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStolen Honor: Stigmatizing Muslim Men in Berlin Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5René Girard and Secular Modernity: Christ, Culture, and Crisis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bonds of Alliance: Indigenous and Atlantic Slaveries in New France Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The French Imperial Nation-State: Negritude and Colonial Humanism between the Two World Wars Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Forbidden Signs: American Culture and the Campaign against Sign Language Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLocating the Past / Discovering the Present: Perspectives on Religion, Culture, and Marginality Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Place of Enchantment: British Occultism and the Culture of the Modern Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Haitian Revolution in the Literary Imagination: Radical Horizons, Conservative Constraints Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMarx's Inferno: The Political Theory of Capital Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dangerous Guests: Enemy Captives and Revolutionary Communities during the War for Independence Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Beyond the Civil War Hospital: The Rhetoric of Healing and Democratization in Northern Reconstruction Writing, 1861-1882 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAfrican Literature and Social Change: Tribe, Nation, Race Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHidden Heretics: Jewish Doubt in the Digital Age Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Who Owns the News?: A History of Copyright Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAfter Lavinia: A Literary History of Premodern Marriage Diplomacy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSpaces of Danger: Culture and Power in the Everyday Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVictorians and the Virgin Mary: Religion and gender in England, 1830–85 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Historical Biographies For You
The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Diary of Anne Frank (The Definitive Edition) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Twelve Years a Slave (Illustrated) (Two Pence books) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Seven Pillars of Wisdom (Rediscovered Books): A Triumph Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Coreyography: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer: An Edgar Award Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil and Harper Lee Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Black Like Me: The Definitive Griffin Estate Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Moveable Feast Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago: The Authorized Abridgement Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Benjamin Franklin: An American Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leonardo da Vinci Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mein Kampf Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith and Love Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Frida Kahlo: An Illustrated Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bonhoeffer Abridged: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shakespeare: The World as Stage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anne Frank Remembered Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Burdens of Proof
0 ratings0 reviews