Five Leaves Press Nottingham April 2013 Political activists are popularly supposed to be wild eyed visionaries or ranting dogmatists who spend their time manning real or imaginary barricades. Bibliophiles, in contrast, are expected to be quiet retiring academic types who send their whole lives in … [Read more...] about Reading Room Only: Memoir of a Radical Bibliophile
Autobiography
The Way We Were Then
The Way We Were : 144 Piccadilly squat A few years ago a TV company approached me to see if I would be interviewed for a programme they wanted to make about the Street Commune squat at 144 Piccadilly. It was to be broadcast as part of a series entitled ‘The Way We Were’ in which people who had been directly involved in recent historical events were asked to talk about … [Read more...] about The Way We Were Then
Formations Of Self And Society 1943-73: A Conversation With Cynthia Cockburn
2008 was forty years after the student uprisings which caused a storm in the teacups of the political establishment across the world. The anniversary was an occasion for that generation, my generation, to take stock, to look back at the conjuncture and consider how it had shaped our politics and subsequent lives. As someone who had been a student in the early sixties … [Read more...] about Formations Of Self And Society 1943-73: A Conversation With Cynthia Cockburn
Autographologies: Reflections On Writing A Memoir
Autographologies (text) This essay draws on the experience of writing a memoir- ‘Reading Room Only’- to reflect on current trends, models and motivations within the genre. Philippe Lejeune’s notion of the ‘autobiographical pact’ is used to look at how different approaches to memoir-writing stake their claims to be an ‘authentic’ discourse of the self. In addition it is … [Read more...] about Autographologies: Reflections On Writing A Memoir
