Teaching Life As Story

THE EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF LIFE WRITING VOLUME VII(2018)TL15–TL28 Teaching Life as Story Jane McVeigh University of Roehampton and Oxford University Department for Continuing Education The way that people tell their life story, and are supported to do so, can be empowering and open up new opportunities. Following a long career working in community based not-for-profit organisations, my research and teaching has always been underpinned by the belief that one way to understand day-to-day lives is through stories. Listening to and reading about the lives of other people, as well as narrating our own lives, is part of every- day life. Reading, writing about, watching and listening to narrative discourse in different forms, and writing about people’s lives in creative and re-creative writing — and I include metanarratives in the latter—are just a few of the ways that help us grapple with the lives of ourselves and others. Whether we then go on to understand people any better is a different story and is influenced by our own place in the world and the way that the story is framed by ourselves or others within historical, cultural, social and politi- cal contexts, as recent theory has taught us. Also, my own research on the changing nature of archives and concerns about authenticity in public discourse and the fluidity of genre, as well as my background in literary criti- cism, have undoubtedly influenced the design and content of my teaching. As biographer Claire Tomalin comments, “What you look for when you are thinking about a biography are the stories in somebody’s life” (2004, 92). Similarly, John Paul Eakin’s writing about autobiography argues that “narrative is not merely something we tell, listen to, read, or invent, it is an essential part of our sense of who we are” (2008, ix). He suggests that “what we are could be said to be a story of some kind” (ix) given that “We tell stories about ourselves every day” (1). Elsewhere, I have added that we tell stories about ourselves and others every day, in our personal and professional lives.1 These life stories may be about people we know or are connected to our lives in some way, as well as about people who are European Journal of Life Writing, Vol VII, TL15–TL28 2018. doi: 10.5463/ejlw.7.278 16 Jane McVeigh famous and infamous. They may also be about people whose stories have previously been hidden or ignored. In nonfiction narratives, life stories are based on the facts of our lives, but how we tell them and to whom can influence the way that they are heard or understood. As Julie Rak notes for autobiography and memoir, “the process of writing a life is, indeed, selective and involves creativity as they decide what story to tell and how to tell it” (2017, 102). This is also true for biography and, as Rak also comments, genre matters when teaching life-writing (101). My courses focus on both first and third person narratives and include some discussion on metanarratives and novels about life-writing. A study of the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction, particularly creative nonfiction, and challenging assumptions about genre lies at the heart of a study of life-writing. In addition, these courses cover aspects of how to write well and the importance of reading, including our expectations of the implied reader.2 As Laurie McNeill and Kate Douglas argue, “what we read, how we read it, how we talk about what we read—underpin pedago- gies of life narrative” (2017, 8). I encourage students to think about David Morley’s argument that reading is an essential part of writing: Writing is only a more exacting form of reading … To become, and to remain, an original creative writer you must first become, and be, as original a reader. (2007, 25) And as with writing, so with reading, the experience of rewriting and reread- ing is essential. In my teaching I also encourage students to consider the extent to which life and life-writing, as a reflection of individual and group lives, whatever form it takes, is mediated, relational, fragmented, often col- laborative and influenced by cultural perspectives, questions of diversity, geographical locations, our understanding of history and the nature of translation, literal and metaphorical, across languages, cultures and nations. The course I describe here is an introduction to life-writing.3 It is taught to students of the Oxford University Department for Continuing Education. The overview for the course in 2018 reads: Stories about our lives can be told in many ways. The life of the same person, or group of people, can be explored from different perspectives. This course will focus on the lives of literary figures, covering biography, autobiography and memoir. From fiction to nonfiction, we will discuss a range of approaches to writing about famous people and those who are invisible or forgotten. The course will also offer an opportunity to discuss a life story that you are keen to write, if you have one. Reflecting on the nature of life-writing can inform both our reading and writing about people’s lives within wider cultural, social and historical contexts. Teaching Life as Story 17 In the first week, I outline the structure for each two hour seminar that will include a short lecture followed by a discussion based on the theme for that week. A regular slot is available for students to make a presentation about their own life-writing project, if they wish. Each week we then cover aspects of genre, style and form, questions of theory, close reading of some examples of canonical and noncanonical narratives, the role of the reader, as well as some general principles about writing well.4 I also squeeze in sections on working in both personal and institutional archives, types of evidence and how to gather material from a range of sources on the basis that the quality of research and how it is conducted have a critical influence on how a story is told. Students submit two assignments, including one formative piece halfway through the course. McNeill and Douglas have argued that teaching life narratives, “can embody issues and concepts—such as power, agency, “race,” and class … [it] can therefore become a genuine opportunity to represent diversity and talk about difference” (6). I teach both autobiographical and biographical narratives influenced by my working life in projects support- ing homeless people, disabled people and people who have experience of mental health problems, domestic violence and substance misuse. Learning about the lives of people outside the canon, as well as the lives of better known figures, portrayed and transformed in both autobiographical and biographical texts, offers students an opportunity to look at both their own lives and those of others around them, including the lives of people whose experience may be very different from their own. The life of Stuart is just one example of such a life. Stuart: A Life Backwards (2005) by Alexander Masters is a story about Stuart’s life that begins close to its end, as Masters gets to know Stuart later in his life and talks to him about his past. His story is representative of the experience of homeless men in Britain and the impact of abuse. As Masters suggests: Biographies of unknown people … have enormous potential as campaign tools. Interesting lives that might have been our own—not just on the streets but in prisons, refugee camps, old people’s homes, behind the closed cur- tains of the house at the end of the road—are forced onto the attention of readers who know nothing about them except clichés and taxes. (2010, 130) Some people’s lives have wider significance and their life stories challenge dominant discourses. Rachel Holmes argues that Saartjie Baartman, who experienced appalling discriminatory treatment in nineteenth-century England and France, is “South Africa’s most famous and revered national icon of the colonial era” (2007, xiv). In 2002 her remains were returned 18 Jane McVeigh to a funeral in South Africa attended by thousands of people. Rachel Holmes suggests that Saartjie’s tragic experience as a black woman trans- lates her into: a living ancestor. Nations, like individuals, need myths and icons to salve and heal the psychological and physical injury inflicted by oppressive sys- tems … Saartjie’s homecoming was a tangible act to right a historical wrong. (177) We may not be able to hear Saartjie Baartman’s voice directly, but the story of her life is important in postcolonial discourse and the history of South Africa.5 As part of studying canonical and noncanonical texts, each week on the course considers how different narratives are constructed to convey meaning. For example, we discuss the use of naming, how scenes and anecdotes are used to construct a life story, metanarratives about the experience of life-writing and a few novels that explore aspects of life- writing. Students are made aware of the pitfalls of assuming that how names are applied in public discourse is straightforward. Alan Bennett muses in his dairy, Keeping On Keeping On (2016), on 15th October 2012, about the ways that a range of people address him: In the coffee shop across the road where I get my daily decaf latte it’s ‘Sir’, though one of the (several) discussion groups outside refers to me as ‘that man’, as in ‘Hello, that man,’ which has an undertone of the parade ground to it. In the greengrocer’s I am ‘Mr B.’ and to the elegant old lady who used to own it and who has lived round here longer than I have, I am ‘My dear’.

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