Call for papers for the Special Issue ''Images of self: history, literature and memory''

2024-07-21

This proposal for a thematic dossier is based on a theme with an interdisciplinary approach, which has been at the center of various historiographical studies and other fields in the humanities and social sciences, appearing in current articles by historians from the most diverse approaches, and being the pillar of development of prominent scientific journals, such as Life Writing, published by Taylor & Francis. From organizations such as the International Autobiography Association (IABA), responsible for events that bring together experts in the field, to journals dedicated to the subject, autobiographical writing is a source of a wide range of research and a focus for multiple theoretical and methodological fields of knowledge.

There has been an extensive dissemination of this documentations in publications over the last five years, with examples that reflect the complexity and plurality of the field, as seen in the volumes, as is the case of: Career Construction Theory and Life Writing: Narrative and Autobiographical Thinking across the Professions (2021) by Hywel Dix; Essays in Life Writing (2022), edited by Kylie Cardell; and The Selfless Ego: Configurations of Identity in Tibetan Life Writing (2023), by Lucia Galli and Franz Xaver Erhard.

As a historiographical source, it can be analyzed using different methodologies, including quantitative (prosopography, for example) and qualitative research, as well as serving as a vehicle for thinking about current approaches in gender and sexuality studies, ethnic-racial groups, intersectionality, subalternities, different social classes, etc., depending on the subjects who produce them. It also makes it possible to return to and reframe dialogues dear to historiography from a theoretical-methodological point of view, such as the relationship between history and literature; truth and fiction; subjectivity and objectivity; collectivity and individuality; memory; testimony; ego-history etc. In this sense, autobiographies written by historians have received greater attention in recent years, with figures such as Jaume Aurell and Jeremy D. Popkin taking up the writing of history as a narrative - an approach already explored by Hayden White and Dominick LaCapra -, to propose that: this recontextualization of historiographical writing in the midst of literary and narrative tools, allows us to think about the autobiographies of historians, who narrate their theoretical-methodological processes, in order to frame these texts in a bias of historiographical reflection; but also to think about the relationships and boundaries between history and fiction through these texts.

Finally, by covering various time periods, with sources produced in different contexts, the theme of this thematic dossier encourages the analysis of the multiple layers that make up the complex narrative of human existence over time, starting with an analysis of the “I” as the authority of the discourse of the self and witness to its unfolding, and continuing with the interweaving of memories, memoirs and life experiences. This, in itself, dialogues with the focus and scope of the journal, by proposing a space for reflection on some of the sources we use in historiography and on the ways of recording and making the past intelligible, employed by the subjects we study.

Therefore, this dossier has the objective to cover studies that fall under these thematic axes (though not limited to):

  1. Autobiographical writing and/or representation as a source in its various forms of production and dissemination;
  2. The influence of historical places and times on the production of autobiographical sources and/or narratives of the “self”;
  3. The different forms and compositions that configure autobiography over time, space and varied approaches (cultural, intersectional, gender, religious, etc.);
  4. Possible methodologies and theoretical scopes when thinking about “images of the self” throughout history;
  5. The possibility of interdisciplinary dialogues when having autobiographical sources as the center of investigations.