Diaries and Autobiography Flashcards
1
Q
Diaries and Autobiography Secondary Literature
Summarise the key findings of John Lahr (ed.) The diaries of Kenneth Tynan (2001)
A
- Curated collection of diaries from Tynan, a theatre critic and writer for the Observer and later National Theatre Company. Anti-censorship, first to say ‘fuck’ on TV. Extracts from 1971.
- Article Points: ’naked propaganda for capitalism; entry into EU, anti-porn, Lawrence of Arabia, academic debate about mind and body; producing a book (late); explains as situation by referencing authorities like Wilhelm Reich; potato and potato-less countries. Attention to diet, LSD trips, Pamela Brown death, being caught by Private Eye for wearing drag at a twenties ball.
2
Q
Diaries and Autobiography Secondary Literature
Summarise the key findings of Gail Lewis - Truth, Dare or Promise: Girls Growing Up in the Fifties
A
- Wider book -> autobiographical writing 12 women who grew into feminism in the 1970s look back on their childhoods. Range of class experience.
- Gail Lewis is a sociologist specialising in race and gender. Long standing member of the Brixton Black Women’s Group.
- Discusses experience of race, working class community. WC house (infested with mice), introduction to sex “There were also some warehouses behind the laundry, the place where many of us girls received some initiation into the secrets of sexual play’. Discusses going with racist older boys out of ‘fear’ and to ‘fit in’. Describes a lesbian exchange ‘I remember one time when I and another little black girl did some experimentation with each other, and that was highly enjoyable.’
- Links to Steedman - ‘The most wonderful orange we got was the NHS concentrated type that came in medicine bottles.’
- Discusses racism in school - Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Details family dynamics with father. ‘Truly believed women were just there to serve men’. Jamaican father - would be ‘right and understandable that he would ‘give her some licks’, hit her’.
3
Q
Diaries and Autobiography Secondary Literature
Summarise the key findings of Joe Moran, ‘Private Lives, Public Histories: The Diary in Twentieth-Century Britain’
A
- Diary keeping was encouraged by newspapers in early 20c. 1920-1950s, diary keeping came to be imagined as one way of making sense of changing notions of the self, individual privacy and the value of ordinary life, and that it was accompanied by daily rituals and material practices that were seen as rich and meaningful in themselves. People wrote to ensure their lives did not pass into oblivion without a trace. Diaries as way to immortality. Proselytised by Arthur Ponsonby on BBC Radio. Tom Harrisson of MO also endorsed diaries. Diaries seen as site of intimacy. Great Diary Project, 2007 - boon for diarists.
- Roper calls “the articulation points between cultural scripts and subjectivity.”
