GER 526

Topics in German Literature: Ego-Writing, Autobiography, Diary, Self-Documentation, Quantified Self

Spring 2020
Mon
01:30 pm – 04:20 pm

This seminar investigates the long-standing claim that autobiographical writing doesn't simply document the self, but--through this very documentation--constitutes the subjective self as such. We read texts from the late 18th-C to the present, and consider the extension of this literary tradition into the digital world via "diary apps", "life-logging" and the new "sharing culture." Close readings of texts by Francke, Goethe, Sagar, C. Schmitt, Knausgaard, among others, and digital apps like Happy Factor, explore the relationship between text-based communication with the Ego and the genres and media formats used by the writing self.

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