Contemporary Cultures of Writing – Spring 2019 seminars 1

This session will be concerned with writing about and constructing a sense of self. It will consider whether this might best be done through factual or fictional means, whether there is such a thing as an authentic self, or whether all accounts of self are necessarily fictions to a greater or lesser degree. It will also consider issues of culture in relation to modes of self-narration.

Novelist and film-maker Xiaolu Guo will discuss the construction of self in her recent memoir, Once Upon A Time in the East, and in relation to her previous fiction. Fiona Doloughan, Senior Lecturer in English (Literature and Creative Writing) at the Open University will contextualize some of the questions the series hopes to address and refer to Guo’s work from a literary critical perspective.

Organized by the OU’s Contemporary Cultures of Writing Research Group in collaboration with the Institute of English Studies, University of London.

If you have any queries regarding this seminar series, please contact the series convenors, Dr Fiona Doloughan and Dr Heather Richardson, Department of English and Creative Writing, the Open University.

See here for further information about the series.