At its simplest, we might think of autofiction as “fictionalized autobiography.” But the recent burst of autofictional novels is complicating our understanding of the form, and making some people ask what the point is, in the end, of blurring fact and fiction the way autofiction typically does. Writing on Vulture.com, Christian Lorentzen has this to say about it:

“Beyond an index of what’s ‘real’ and what isn’t, there are other, deeper things at stake in autofiction’s status as fiction…We expect essays to inform us about the world and to make arguments, and autofiction novels often do similar things in the form of essayistic digressions, but within the frame of fiction they have a different status if they are put in characters’ minds or mouths than if they’re made by a memoirist or an essayist, who we are meant to believe are as charming or as redeemed or as righteous as they appear to be on the page. Autofiction writers stand at a certain distance from the world — and the ethics and the politics — on display in their novels, as far or farther than authors of fictions that aren’t autobiographical at all.”

In this senior seminar, we’ll devote ourselves to reading and writing about texts in this (newish) genre, thinking about Lorentzen’s claims and others’ to explore the value and function of autofictional writing. You’ll also write some of your own autofiction–this section of English 407 will be a genre-focused class, where students’ formal, graded work is made up of both creative and analytical writing. Our class meetings will be largely based in discussion, sharing, in-class writing–and lots of thinking and writing experiments; come with an eagerness to make thoughts, to exchange them with others, to complicate and refine them, and to practice with the academic community that we’ll build together in class the work of intellectual exploration that can lead to deep reading and sophisticated critical writing. 

This course fulfills the following English major/minor requirements: American Literature