Project link: https://sonicmemoir.my.canva.site/ Research paper: docs.google.com/document For my final project, I chose to explore a deeply personal and evolving expression of identity through music. The project is structured around two CDs, each divided into thematic arcs that reflect different stages of self-reflection. These arcs—Chaos & Containment, Escape & Invention, Clarity & Reclamation, and Release & […]
Ocean Vuong makes a deliberate and powerful stylistic decision to frame his memoir On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous as a letter to his mother, who we come to find cannot read English and was therefore never intended to consume the text. This transforms the rhetorical landscape of the life narrative and fundamentally alters how readers […]
You slide the seat back and prop your knees on the steering wheel. It’s stuffy–the car’s been sitting for hours–but the heat is refreshing after the clinical equilibrium of the hospital. You haven’t eaten, but the day simply got ahead of you. You don’t want to think about the looming research paper deadline or the […]
In Sink, Joseph Earl Thomas crafts a memoir that vividly portrays his turbulent childhood in Philadelphia, marked by violence, neglect, and a longing for escape. Growing up in an environment where love is often conditional and survival requires constant vigilance, Thomas finds solace and meaning in the fictional worlds of anime, video games, and fantasy […]
In Stay True, a memoir coming-of-age story by Hua Hsu, the author periodically drops song titles or artist names in an interesting way. He uses them as markers of sorts that map out the identity the narrator carves for himself. They catalog his personal growth and shifting perceptions. In the early chapters of the book, […]
I stared at the blank email draft on my laptop screen, the cursor blinking like it was waiting for me to make a decision. If I didn’t start reaching out to coaches, nothing was ever going to come of this. Do I even want this? This would be a no-brainer for my teammates. They’d kill […]
When deconstructing a well-structured life narrative such as How to Say Babylon, by Saifya Sinclair, it is important to take all facets of the work into account, not just the ones the author left intentionally for us to see. Sinclair’s memoir is lyrical, evocative, and deeply poetic, immersing the reader into her upbringing in a […]
The concept of different “I’s,” as defined by Smith and Watson in Reading Autobiography Now: An Updated Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives, offers a unique lens to understand the complexity of self-representation in autobiographical writing. For the author, these I’s reveal the multifaceted nature of identity, and how it is shaped, remembered, and performed. For […]