GETTING TO KNOW HER:
THEORY AND PRACTICE OF WOMEN'S BIOGRAPHY

Instructor:  Miriam K. Harris
University of Texas at Dallas
Arts and Humanities
Office:  JO 3.602       883-2038
mharris@utdallas.edu

Literature:  3312: 071
Monday 9:00-1:00 pm
12 week summer session


Course Description
        This course will focus on the  biographer's quest to unravel the
mysteries of a subject's life and of the reader's quest to "know" a
life.   Thus, we will look at the story of the biographer along with the
story of the subject herself.  In addition, we will examine different
genres of biography -- literary, political, family issues,
auto/biography, fictionalized -- exploring the purpose and perspective of
each.
        Class discussions will probe current concerns in the discipline
of life writing, such as:  How do our questions evoke certain answers?
How "unbiased" can an interview be?  How "unbiased" can a witness be?
What are the feminist approaches to the objectivity/subjectivity
conundrum all biographers face?  How are the lives we study framed:  by
ethnicity, social class, cultural heritage? How does the biographer draw
"truth" from fiction and non-fiction left behind by the subjects
themselves:  letters, memoirs, fiction, diaries.

Course Requirements

Students will be graded on class attendance and participation, and on
three formal projects which will be conducted in stages that illuminate
the writing process itself.

1.   Take an oral history (interview) from a subject of their own
choosing.  Then transcribe the tape into a transcript.  Edit and workshop
in class.

2.   Develop into a finished  biographical portrait, applying theories
discussed in class from Alpern et.al and hand-outs.  (5-10 pages)

3.   Choose a biography not covered in class and identify a pertinent
issue, theme, or approach for a final research paper.  You may choose to
compare this work to one we read in class.  (5-7 page paper)


Books

Required Readings {in UTD Bookstore and Off Campus}

Primary Sources

Cook, Blanche Wiesen.  Eleanor Roosevelt:  Volume I, 1884 - 1933.  New
York: Penguin, 1993.
Middlebrook, Diane Wood.  Anne Sexton: A Biography.  NY: Vintage, 1991.
Owens, Claire Myers.  The Unpredictable Adventure:  A Comedy of Woman's
Independence.  Afterword:  Miriam Kalman Harris.  New York:  Syracuse UP,
1993.
Weimer, Joan.  Back Talk:  Teaching Lost Selves To Speak.  Illinois:
Chicago UP, 1996.

Secondary/Theory

Alpern, Sara, Joyce Antler, Elisabeth Israels Perry, and Ingrid Winther
Scobie, editors.  The Challenge of Feminist Biography:  Writing the Lives
of Modern American Women.   Urbana and Chicago: U. of Illinois P, 1992.
Heilbrun, Carolyn.  Writing a Woman's Life.  New York:  W.W. Norton,
1988.

Suggested Readings -- Optional
{Some at UTD & Off Campus}
Primary Texts

Blackburn, Julia.  Daisy Bates in the Desert.  New York:  Pantheon,
1994.
Maddox, Brenda.  Nora.  NY:  Houghton Mifflin, 1988.
Scobie, Ingrid Winther.  Center Stage:  Helen Gahagan Douglas.  New
York:  Oxford UP, 1992.
Toth, Emily.  Kate Chopin.  Austin:  University of Texas Press, 1990.

Theory

Bateson, Mary Catherine Bateson.  Composing a Life.  New York:  Plume, 1990.
Iles, Teresa, editor.  All Sides of the Subject:  Women and Feminist
Biography.  New York:  Teacher's College Press, Columbia University,
1992.
Wagner-Martin, Linda.  Telling Women's Lives:  New Biography. NJ: Rutgers
UP, 1994.

Reading Schedule and Class Itinerary

Week 1 --  June 3       Portraits:  My Mother/My Self

Introduction to course
First assignment issued

Week 2 -- June 10       Discussion of Writing a Woman's Life, Heilbrun
        Turn in description of Interview Project

Week 3 -- June 17       Discussion of first half of Eleanor Roosevelt, Cook
        Transcript due

Week 4 -- June 24       Second half of Eleanor Roosevelt, Cook
        Workshop of Transcript:  Assignment #1 ended

Week 5 -- July 1        Discussion of first half of Anne Sexton, Middlebrook
        Alpern:  Introduction
        Draft of  Shaped Portrait due:  Assignment #2
        Workshop Portrait

Week 6 -- July 8        Second half of  Anne Sexton, Middlebrook
        Alpern:  Florence Kelley, by Kathryn Kish Sklar

Week 7 -- July  15              First half of  The Unpredictable
Adventure, Owens
        Hand out:  "Our Cooperative Community," Owens
        Portrait due:  Assignment #2 ended

Week 8 -- July 22       Second half of  The Unpredictable Adventure, Owens
        Alpern:  Emma Goldman, by Alice Wexler
        Assign final Paper:  Assignment #3

Week 9 -- July 29       Back Talk, Weimer
        Alpern:  Helen G. Douglas, by Ingrid Scobie

Week 10 -- Aug.  5      Back Talk, Weimer
        Alpern:  Lucy Sprague Mitchell, by Joyce Antler

Week 11 -- Aug.  12     Catch up on Discussions
        Workshop -- Private interviews

Week 12 -- Aug.  19     Turn in final project:  Assignment #3 ended.
        Meet at Sequoyah, Preston at Royal, Southwest Corner
        10 a.m.
Grades Due:  August 21, 1996

In a fall or spring semester (16-17 weeks) I would have the Intro and
selections from Alpern et al as a separate assignment rather than
doubling up as I did here in a short semester.  The assignments explained:
Week one -- portrait:  to write an autobiographical introduction as if
you are describing a portrait of yourself -- what's in the picture; where
are you standing or sitting; who is with you etc.

Paper #1 -- in two parts:  that is the interview and transcript count as
one grade.  the paper as a second grade.  5-7 pages for undergrad.
Shaping the transcript into a story of the person's life.  Some people
wrote 10-12 pages because their subjects had  much to say.

Paper #2 (third grade) is a comparison between two biog. or between an
auto. and a biog. or some kind of creative paper they dreamed up.  This
was a small class so we brainstored and workshoped to suit individual
student's interests.


Miriam K. Harris
mharris@utdallas.edu