A transdisciplinary array of authors offering a new frame of reference for autotheory and its genre-bending synthesis of autobiography and critical theory.
A transdisciplinary array of authors offering a new frame of reference for autotheory and its genre-bending synthesis of autobiography and critical theory.
Autotheories tells the story of a field in formation. Building on traditions that have long fused life writing, philosophical encounter, embodied theorizing, and cultural critique, autotheory constructs new practices of critical theory. Transgressing generic boundaries and bridging stylistic registers, it crafts language that is intimate, analytic, playful, and insurgent. Editors Alex Brostoff and Vilashini Cooppan underscore autotheory's multiple genealogies and genre-bending forms while situating it within the contemporary political field. In this collection, autotheory emerges as a strut (of style), a straddle (of disciplines), a proliferation (of selves), an axis (of identifications), an index (of attachments), and an archive (of loves).
An assemblage and an experience, Autotheories surveys the field's iterations and permutations. Without settling for classification or bowing to ossification, Autotheories invites you to its discursive play.
Contributors include-
Alex Brostoff, Jessica Bush, Judith Butler, Vilashini Cooppan, Carla Freccero, rl Goldberg, Jan Grue, Emma Lieber, Megan Moodie, Lili Owen Rowlands, John Patterson, Paul B. Preciado, Erica Richardson, Migueltzinta C. Solis, Jamieson Webster, Damon Ross Young, Stacey Young, Arianne Zwartjes
By:
Alex Brostoff,
Vilashini Cooppan
Imprint: Massachusetts Inst of Tec
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 229mm,
Width: 152mm,
Weight: 369g
ISBN: 9780262552295
ISBN 10: 0262552299
Pages: 296
Publication Date: 18 March 2025
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Introduction: Articulating Autotheories Alex Brostoff and Vilashini Cooppan Part I: Body Disciplines 1 Impossible Professions: Autotheory, Psychoanalysis, Pedagogy Emma Lieber, Jessica Bush, and John Patterson 2 That Obscure Object of Embodiment: On Autotheory’s Disciplinary Knowledges Jan Grue 3 Autoethnography, Undone: Toward a Crip Critique of Ethnographic Realism Megan Moodie 4 This Baby’s Got the Feel of a Girl: Trans Memoir, Autotheory, and Feeling as Oneself RL Goldberg Part II: Threshold Movements 5 The Auto- of Theory Carla Freccero 6 Our Autotheoretical Lives Stacey Young 7 “I’ll Take You There”: Reading Autotheory through Black Feminism Erica Richardson 8 Failure Notes: Toward a Self-Praxis of Failure Arianne Zwartjes 9 Begging to Differ: Autofiction, Autotheory and Contemporary French Feminisms Lili Owen Rolands Part III: Desiring Subjects 10 The Very Last Essay I Will Write about Ira Adelman: mestizXXX Autotheory, Pornographic Automethodologies, and Trans Autocinemas Migueltzinta C. Solís 11 need ideas!?! PLZ!!: The Phatic Self in the Always-on Network Damon Ross Young 12 Nova Species Mihi—Hysterical Flora Jamieson Webster 13 This Life, This Theory Judith Butler Coda: Empty Paul B. Preciado Acknowledgments Contributors
Alex Brostoff is Assistant Professor of English at Kenyon College. An interdisciplinary scholar and translator, they are the coeditor of a special issue of ASAP/Journal on autotheory. Vilashini Cooppan is Professor of Literature and Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at the University of California at Santa Cruz and the author of Worlds Within- National Narratives and Global Connections in Postcolonial Writing.
Reviews for Autotheories
""Theory wonks will love this rigorous and surprisingly playful survey of the genre of autotheory."" —The Millions
