Performing the author/mother/merchant/wife: moving subject positions in Minna Canth's autobiography
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 humanitiesAuthors
Editors
Date
2010Copyright
© 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.
...
![showless](/themes/JYX2//images/showless.png)
![showmore](/themes/JYX2//images/showmore.png)
Publisher
University of JyväskyläParent publication ISBN
978-951-39-3810-9Is part of publication
Gender, nation, narration: critical readings of cultural phenomenaISSN Search the Publication Forum
1459-4323Keywords
Original source
http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-951-39-3829-1Publication in research information system
https://converis.jyu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/19513707
Metadata
Show full item recordCollections
Related items
Showing items with similar title or keywords.
-
The human question in science fiction television : (re)imagining humanity in Battlestar Galactica, Bionic Woman and V
Koistinen, Aino-Kaisa (University of Jyväskylä, 2015) -
A greasy-skinned worker : gender, class and work in the 20th-century life story of a female labourer
Koskinen-Koivisto, Eerika (University of Jyväskylä, 2013) -
Kalevalan naiset ja tiedon yöpuoli : Lönnrotin jalanjäljissä kohti Kalevalan naisten tarinoita
Piilola, Tiina (University of Jyväskylä, 2017)My dissertation deals with the most important female figures of the Finnish national epic New Kalevala (1849): Aino, Louhi, Lemminkäinen’s mother and Marjatta. The epic was compiled by Elias Lönnrot (1802–1884) from ... -
The Clip Approach : A Visual Methodology to Support the (Re)Construction of Life Narratives
Talsi, Riikka; Laitila, Aarno; Joensuu, Timo; Saarinen, Esa (SAGE Publications, 2021)Major life changes may cause an autobiographical rupture and a need to work on one’s narrative identity. This article introduces a new qualitative interview methodology originally developed to facilitate 10 prostate cancer ... -
Äitien kokemukset pitkäkestoisesta imetyksestä
Säilävaara, Jenny (Sukupuolentutkimuksen seura, 2021)YTT Jenny Säilävaaran sukupuolentutkimuksen väitöskirja "Pitkään imettäneet äidit : tutkimus äitien fyysisestä, sosiaalisesta ja emotionaalisesta tilasta" tarkastettiin Jyväskylän yliopistossa 29.1.2021. Vastaväittäjänä ...