Writing and Reading Subjects: Fixing and Unfixing Identity through Close Literary Practices

• Published in: Changing English Vol. 17; no. 4; pp. 385 - 398
• Main Authors: Robson, Claire, Sumara, Dennis, Luce-Kapler, Rebecca, Coll, Bridget, Hogan, Pat, Hurst, Greta, Innes, Val, Morrissey, Chris, Spencer, Chris
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Abingdon Routledge 01.12.2010; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Collaborative Writing; Diaries; Females; Foreign Countries; Group Activities; Homosexuality; Literature; memoir; Memory; Narratives; Older Adults; older lesbians; Reading; Reading Instruction; research subjects; Researchers; Teaching Methods; Theory; Writing; writing group; Writing Instruction; Writing Processes; Canada
• ISSN: 1358-684X; 1469-3585
• DOI: 10.1080/1358684X.2010.528872

For a number of years, Rebecca Luce-Kapler and Dennis Sumara have been investigating the ways in which literary practices of close reading can help change how we think and how we remember. They have also considered how such practices might help make us more critical of normative representations of remembered experience. More recently, they have been joined by Claire Robson, who works with and investigates memoir writing. In 2009, Robson and Sumara were joined by their six older lesbian research participants at a conference held at the University of British Columbia entitled 'Queerly Canadian: Changing Narratives'. The six women performed extracts from memoirs they had written as part of the research data and joined the researchers in offering theories and insights about the writing processes in which the group had engaged. That presentation and this paper represent the evolution of a two-year collaboration between these researchers and the six women, who are listed as co-authors on both the presentation and this paper.