Memory's Stories: Interdisciplinary Readings of Multicultural Life Narratives

(Paperback)

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Memory's Stories is an interdisciplinary analysis of multicultural life narratives. The author created an innovative schema to evaluate classic and contemporary texts, synthesizing theoretical perspectives from psychology, literary theory, feminist and multicultural studies. The schema is based on his fifteen years of teaching undergraduate and graduate courses, such as "Multicultural Autobiographies" and "Psychology, Multicultural Narratives, and Religion."

Chapter One introduces the author's schema and explores Saint Augustine's The Confessions. Chapter Two uses Erik Erikson's psychosocial development theory to examine Thomas Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain. In Chapter Three, the author evaluates Black Elk Speaks and The Autobiography of Malcolm X, using William James's psychology of religion framework. Feminist literary theorists, like Sidonie Smith, provide the critical tools for Chapter Four and Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior. In Chapter Five, with Dan McAdams's life story model of identity, the author analyzes three serial autobiographies by Richard Rodriguez: Hunger of Memory; Days of Obligation; and Brown. Chapter Six synthesizes recent interdisciplinary scholarship on redemption stories, innovative composition strategies, and cognitive science research on autobiographical memory, evaluating James McBride's auto/biography, The Color of Water.

Reviews

Professor McGovern has performed a remarkable featweaving diverse strands of interdisciplinary scholarship into an articulate and instructive whole. Scholarly pathways are deftly investigated and illuminating connections to life narratives creatively made. McGovern provides a lucid and inspiring account of what it takes to document, fully and authentically, the story of one's life. Memory's Stories is certain to find a permanent place on the bookshelves and desks of a wide range of scholars in the Humanities and Social Sciences and in the syllabi of many of the courses they teach. For students who are fortunate enough to encounter it in class, it will remain among those select few that they hold onto well beyond their college years. -- E. Allan Brawley, Professor Emeritus, Arizona State University
Provides a useful interdisciplinary introduction to the analysis of life narratives and personal memoirs. These life stories cover a variety of historical periods and cultures. . . . Including notes at the end of each chapter and an author/subject index, this book will be of keen interest to those in psychology, cognitive science, literary theory, and feminist and multicultural studies. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals. * Choice Reviews *
Thomas McGovern's Memory's Stories illustrates what English composition teachers know: writing is a way of composing a life. This interdisciplinary text, which integrates scholarship and pedagogy, presents and analyzes memoirs from various historical periods and cultures. Memory's Stories is a powerful example of writing and reading across the curriculum. It takes the reader into that mysterious place where memory and the imagination meet. -- Elaine P. Maimon, Ph.D.

Author Bio

Thomas McGovern is a Professor of Psychology and co-founder of the Department of Integrative Studies at Arizona State University at the West Campus. A Fellow of the American Psychological Association and its Society for the Teaching of Psychology, he was the CASE / Carnegie Foundation Professor of the Year in Arizona in 2003.