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Seriality I Co Temporary America Memoir SERIALITY I COTEMPORARY AMERICA MEMOIR: 1957-2007 A Dissertation by NICOLE EVE MCDANIEL-CARDER Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY August 2009 Major Subject: English SERIALITY I COTEMPORARY AMERICA MEMOIR: 1957-2007 A Dissertation by NICOLE EVE MCDANIEL-CARDER Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Approved by: Chair of Committee, Susan M. Stabile Committee Members, Pamela Matthews Linda Radzik Sally Robinson Head of Department, M. Jimmie Killingsworth August 2009 Major Subject: English iii ABSTRACT Seriality in Contemporary American Memoir: 1957-2007. (August 2009) Nicole Eve McDaniel-Carder, B.A., Sweet Briar College; M.A., Texas A&M University Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. Susan M. Stabile In this dissertation, I examine the practice of what I term serial memoir in the second-half of the twentieth century in American literature, arguing that serial memoir represents an emerging and significant trend in life writing as it illustrates a transition in how a particular generation of writers understands lived experience and its textual representation. During the second-half of the twentieth century, and in tandem with the rapid technological advancements of postmodern and postindustrial culture, I look at the serial authorship and publication of multiple self-reflexive texts and propose that serial memoir presents a challenge to the historically privileged techniques of linear storytelling, narrative closure, and the possibility for autonomous subjectivity in American life writing. As generic boundaries become increasingly fluid, postmodern memoirists are able to be both more innovative and overt about how they have constructed the self at particular moments in time. Following the trend of examining life writing through contemporary theories about culture, narrative, and techniques of self- representation, I engage the serial memoirs of Mary McCarthy, Maya Angelou, Art Spiegelman, and Augusten Burroughs as I suggest that these authors iterate the self as iv serialized, recursive, genealogically constructed, and material. Finally, the fact that these are well-known memoirists underscores the degree to which serial memoir has become mainstream in American autobiographical writing. Serial memoir emphasizes such issues as temporality and memory, repetition and recursivity, and witnessing and testimony, and as such, my objective in this project is to theorize the practice of serial memoir, a form that has been largely neglected in critical work, as I underscore its significance in relation to twentieth-century American culture. I contend that seriality in contemporary American memoir is a burgeoning and powerful form of self-expression, and that a close examination of how authors are presenting and re-presenting themselves as they challenge conventional life writing narrative structures will influence not only the way we read and understand contemporary memoir, but will impact our approaches to self-reflexive narrative structures and provide us with new ways to understand ourselves, and our lives, in relation to the serial culture in which we live. v DEDICATIO To my family, especially to my grandparents. For Martha Carder, Horace McDaniel, and Walt Wolery, and in memory of Delbert Carder, Audrey McDaniel, Constance West, and Rosemary Wolery. vi ACKOWLEDGMETS As with all dissertations, this project had a great deal of support, and there are many people and institutions that I would like to acknowledge. Without the intellectual communities at Texas A&M, I certainly would not be the scholar that I am. My colleagues in the graduate department over the last seven years, my professors, and my students have all shaped my approach to this project. I am grateful for the Gender Studies Working Group, the American Culture Reading Group, the Empire and After Reading group, and the Africana Studies Working Group for the ways in which they continually fostered conversation and helped me see connections between seemingly disparate texts. For their unwavering commitment to graduate students, and for their continual faith in my work, I thank M. Jimmie Killingsworth, Marian Eide, Lynne Vallone, Anne Morey, Joanna Gibson, and Mary Ann O’Farrell, who nurtured my writing, teaching, and thinking from its earliest stages, and continue to do so. I want to express my gratitude to Sally Robinson and Pamela Matthews in particular, for inspiring me through their engaging and provocative curricula, their dedication to service, and their invaluable support and insightful comments for this dissertation. Much of the early thinking for this project was motivated by them, and it (and I!) are smarter for it. I am fortunate to have worked steadily for the English Department at Texas A&M, and they have provided a great deal of institutional and financial support toward my work. I am extremely grateful for the various opportunities that have been afforded to me by them. I am also grateful for the Glasscock Center for Humanities Research and its director, Jim Rosenheim, and Claudia Nelson and the Women’s Studies Program at vii Texas A&M, who have provided me with support at various moments throughout my years as a graduate student, including fellowships and travel grants. These programs deserve particular acknowledgement for their continued support of graduate student research, as they provide a space for interdisciplinary intellectual development. I am also thankful for the librarians at the Vassar College Special Collections and Archives Library, and Dean Rogers in particular, for their assistance with my research. The community of graduate students at Texas A&M has been a source of great pleasure. In particular, I acknowledge the friendships of Miranda Green-Barteet, and Nick and Dana Lawrence, and thank them for their encouragement and support from the moment they arrived in Texas. Gina Opdyke Terry, Meghan Gilbert-Hickey, and Amy Montz provided great conversation and many culinary treats, and I thank them for making life much happier. They have all provided models for the many ways to be a student, a scholar, and a responsible family member, and I continue to admire them and their work. I also thank Rebecca South, Galen Wilson, Damian Carpenter, and Michael Beilfuss for their steady companionship and unflagging confidence. The conversations we have continue to shape my perspective and my thinking, and make me a more responsible and thoughtful scholar. For Kimberly Cox and Leslie Gautreaux Edwards, I am especially grateful. Their brilliance and enduring friendship have provided an unfailing network of support, conversation, and inspiration. Kim’s insight, her forthright nature, and her companionship have made all the difference for me and for my work. Working closely with her as a teacher helped to shape how I approach scholarship, and I am thankful for viii her honesty. Leslie is a true and dedicated friend, who looked over many early drafts, provided insightful critiques, and helped me develop and complicate my arguments. I am continually honored by her words of encouragement over many years and by her generous friendship. Without the mentorship of Susan Stabile, this project would not have been possible. I wish to thank her for her unwavering support of me and of this dissertation, the thoughtfulness and sureness of her responses as a reader, her keen critical perspective, and her friendship. She has been an inspriation and a motivation for the entirety of my graduate career, and I am fortunate to have had the opportunities to learn from her and teach with her. I am deeply grateful to James Stamant, who I thank for his insightful and thoughtful questions about this project and its argument, and for his careful reading of the manuscript; without him, both this dissertation and I would be far less. I rely heavily on our daily conversations, his delightful humor, his honesty and professional acumen, and his culinary achievements. Most importantly, though, I acknowledge his integrity and his limitless patience and confidence. I am honored by his enduring trust and affection. He certainly has mine. In particular, I acknowledge the role my family has played in the creation and development of this project, and of my scholarship. Without their unwavering confidence and love, this dissertation would not have been possible. As I wrote, my siblings grew into young adults who are an endless joy. I thank Michelle, Liz, Jack, Grant, and Jeff for their sense of playfulness, their delight in our amazing family, and ix their faith in me. They have never ceased to encourage me in the ways that matter the most. My grandparents, Walt Wolery, Martha Carder, and Horace McDaniel, and my parents, Bruce Carder, Janet Wolery, Bill West, and Patricia McDaniel, have given me unconditional support throughout my academic career. They have always impressed upon me the significance of storytelling, and the pleasures of writing, reading, and teaching, and they have constantly nurtured these qualities in me. I am also grateful to my mother for her attention to the power of serial narratives, and for the endless conversations All My Children has provided our family; the allure of serial storytelling has captivated me from early childhood. Finally, I dedicate this project to the grandparents I lost during the course of its writing: Rosemary Wolery, Delbert Carder, and
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