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Performing the author/mother/merchant/wife: moving subject positions in Minna Canth's autobiography

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Saresma, T. (2010). Performing the author/mother/merchant/wife: moving subject positions in Minna Canth's autobiography. In T. Lähdesmäki (Ed.), Gender, nation, narration: critical readings of cultural phenomena (pp. 24-39). University of Jyväskylä. Jyväskylä studies in humanities, 134. http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-951-39-3829-1
Published in
Jyväskylä studies in humanities
Authors
Saresma, Tuija
Editors
Lähdesmäki, Tuuli
Date
2010
Copyright
© University of Jyväskylä

 
Reading autobiography as a performative act enables for the analysis of processes involved in constructing the self. It provides a space for analysing the ways in which gender, nationality, and other social locations of the subject are negotiated. In this article, I read the famous Finnish nineteenth-century playwright and author Minna Canth’s concise autobiography, focusing on various locations of the autobiographical subject in this rather laconic matter-of-fact text. My reading follows current trends in feminist autobiographical theorising as well as feminist politics of reading. I strive to deconstruct the interpretation of autobiographies as dichotomously fixed texts. I suggest a more flexible reading that would take the ambiguities of the genre seriously, such as describing both the public and the private life of the author, constructing the subject of the narrative, both relational and autonomous, in addition to varying stylistically between mere factuality and decorative description. Such a reading takes into account the shifts of the subject positions as well as the styles of narration moving between feminine and masculine, rational and emotional, chronologically organised progress of the plot and a more vague way of organising the narrative according to the inner logic or the unconscious. In analysing the variations of narration, inspired by the theoretical and methodological discussion on intersectionality, I conceptualize autobiography as a site for negotiating and performing various subject positions, thus striving for a non-essential reading of autobiographies. ...
Publisher
University of Jyväskylä
Parent publication ISBN
978-951-39-3810-9
Is part of publication
Gender, nation, narration: critical readings of cultural phenomena
ISSN Search the Publication Forum
1459-4323
Keywords
omaelämäkerta autobiography feminist studies gender studies narrative research roles elämäkertatutkimus sukupuolentutkimus feministinen tutkimus narratiivisuus kansalaisuus performatiivisuus roolit

Original source
http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-951-39-3829-1

URI

http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:jyu-201211102920

Publication in research information system

https://converis.jyu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/19513707

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  • Humanistis-yhteiskuntatieteellinen tiedekunta [5018]
  • Yhteiskuntatieteellinen tiedekunta 31.12.2016 saakka [495]

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