The subject of the course is life writing and its genres of autobiography, autofiction, memoir, the diary, and online diaries. Genre theory frames the discussions that focus upon time perspective, the construction of self, issues of truth and fiction and of literary representation of experience, and the relation between private writing and public reading. The examination of these genres follows their literary historical paths, in their social contexts. It traces the transformation of religious confessions of men to secular autobiographies, such as Jean Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions and Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography and their expansion to autobiographical writing of marginalized women as Sally Morgan’s hybrid text My Place. The study of the memoir follows the genre from its medieval traces to modern memoirs, their political utilization, and the influences of market shifts. For autofiction we shall examine Rachel Cusk’s Outline, compared to her memoir Aftermath, Sheila Heti’s How Should a Person Be, and Natalia Ginzburg’s Family Lexicon. In the history of the diary the analysis focuses on the role of the early canonical diary, as Samuel Pepys’s diary, and its literary function in subsequent diary writings by women and men in times of war and peace, concluding with online diaries.The course assignments will consist of short writing assignments related to the readings and a final paper. There will be no exams.

This seminar explores trends and shifts in interdisciplinary scholarship on the caste question. It serves as an introduction to foundational texts and debates in the history of critical caste studies in fields like sociology, history, Indology, and political philosophy. The course will also engage various methods, pedagogical tools, and conceptual frameworks that have emerged out of anti-oppressive writings and anti-caste transformative politics. The course draws on primary and secondary source material, from the 19th century to the present, to examine how questions of labor, gender and sexuality, colonialism, socio-religious reform, and Ambedkarite politics have shaped discourse around both caste and the politics of its annihilation.

This seminar will be a study of the conceptual turns and breaks that are shaping twenty-first century Black Studies. As we think about the space-clearing gestures that have re-energized Black Studies in the twenty-first century, the changing same will matter as much as new frames that dislodge what has been naturalized in earlier waves of Black Studies. We will situate our study in the most nuanced, emergent waves of inquiry. This attention to the most recent debates and fractured points of view will put a spotlight on the work that remains to be done (the theorizing, textual analysis, and archival work that is being hailed as scholars gesture to the unfinished). This course is open to all Ph.D. and terminal M.A. students. Submatriculated M.A. students interested in enrolling should contact the course instructors to request permission and submit a permit request via Path@Penn

This seminar revisits the question of gender before modernity in light of new expansions and developments within gender and sexuality studies, particularly trans studies. Different instructors may emphasize different aspects of the topic. Please see English.upenn.edu for a full list of course offerings.