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Gender and Language: Reworking Autographics and the Bildungsroman
Objective Summary: The focus of my final project is exploring the formation of gender identity through language and image in conjunction with personal narrative against standardized literary education. I will be drawing on the structural elements from Autographics (autobiographical graphic novels) and the Bildungsroman as well as the collage style, not unlike Lynda Barry’s What It Is. I aim at a play between text and image as well as conventions of medium boundaries and (re)writing and (re)identifying with gendered (and possibly genderless) narratives. The final product will be a hybrid of imitation-comics journaling and scrapbooking.
Grounding/Reference Texts:
Barry, Lynda. What It Is. Montreal, Quebec: Drawn & Quarterly, 2008.
I plan on imitating the mixed media layout and the autobiographical nature of the book as well as using the book’s exercises as a starting point for pieces of creative writing I plan to include.
Brainard, Joe. I Remember. New York; Angel Hair, 1970.
I plan on imitating the “I remember--” format for some of the autobiographical, fictional, and re-written/adapted portions of the written narrative.
Kimmel, Michael S. “Masculinity as Homophobia: Fear, Shame and Silence in the Construction of Gender Identity.” Privilege: A Reader. Ed. Michael Kimmel and Abby Ferber. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2003. 51-74.
I plan on using short excerpts from the essay in the written narrative.
Kincaid, Jamaica. “Girl.” At the Bottom of the River. New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1983.
I plan on adapting the template of the poem and re-writing it (in conjunction with the information provided by the Kimmel essay) to reflect the masculine experience. I may also decide to re-write it to reflect autobiographical experiences as well.
Salinger, J.D. The Catcher in the Rye. New York: Little, Brown, and Company, 1945.
I plan on using excerpts as part of the written narrative.
Ware, Chris. Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth. New York: Pantheon, 2000.
I plan on using excerpts as part of the written narrative, as well as re-writing parts of it to reflect the anxieties on the feminine experience, perhaps drawing on autobiographical information.
Additionally, my own writing: journal entries, college essays, poems, new pieces.
Format: graphic/multi-media narrative (part fiction, part autobiography, part adaptation and re-writing of other narratives)
- Alternate between written and typed text, photograph and drawing,
- Alternate between silent panel/text in gutter, normal panel/blank gutter, text in panel/image in gutter, etc.
- Typed text: my own documented writing
- Written text : excerpts from canonical (and critical) male-oriented texts (Catcher in the Rye, Jimmy Corrigan, “Masculinity as Homophobia”)
- Photos/Drawings: focus on the conventions of dressing/masking the human/superhuman body, creating identity from material/tactile/textual elements.
- Ultimately, I aim to fuse the disjointed and juxtaposed distinctly masculine and feminine narratives (whether they appear strictly through image or strictly through text or (most likely eventually) both) into one narrative that encompasses and overrides gender and attempts to speak to the incoherency and confusion of gender and identity formation in a context framed so rigidly by male-centered narratives and also pinned so decidedly against the alien/”other” female narratives.
- I intend for a good fraction of the written narrative to be my own (creative) writing, in both prose and quasi-poetic form.
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| This paper reflects the research and thoughts of a student at the time the paper was written for a course at Bryn Mawr College. Like other materials on Serendip, it is not intended to be "authoritative" but rather to help others further develop their own explorations. Web links were active as of the time the paper was posted but are not updated. |
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Comments
I am also a little unclear
I am also a little unclear about what the actual question you're exploring is. I think the project sounds really cool, and the final project should be awesome, but what question is inspiring your work? Is there some pattern in autorgraphics/bildugsroman that you hope to break down? Maybe you've thought about these things already and just didn't clarify them so much in this essay. are you trying to examine how gender identity is portrayed or how it could be portrayed?
I really like the mixed media format that you're using, I think it's an awesome way to represent the diversity of our thoughts.
very intriguing
i really think this is a good idea. i love the blending of lynda barry's what it is with a comic book twist. i think you're idea for the actual physical project is excellent, but what i find you may still need to work on is what you want to say with this. i understand what you mean when you say "The focus of my final project is exploring the formation of gender identity through language and image in conjunction with personal narrative against standardized literary education", but what i still can't figure out is the exploring part. i mean what is it that you want to get out of your exploring. Nonetheless, i also like your use of catcher in the rye. i personally never was intrigued by it, but i recently read "Six Degrees of Separation" and there was a part in which the protagonist speaks of catcher in the rye in connection with dreams/imagination.
ps. if you want to borrow the book i'll be glad to send it to you.