Experimental Feminist Life Writing: Examining Autofiction and Autotheory as Strategies of Dissent

Abstract

This thesis examines genre-based experimentation in works of feminist life writing (namely reading Diane di Prima’s Memoirs of a Beatnik, Chris Kraus’ I Love Dick, and McKenzie Wark’s Reverse Cowgirl) as a practice of dissent, building on the developing frameworks of autofiction and autotheory. It approaches these concepts not as genres in their own right, but as formal and aesthetic strategies that open up a space for the performative expression of feminist dissent. Using the autofictional and the autotheoretical strategy, these works produce new discursive spaces for the reconsideration of gender and sexuality and their associated norms of propriety, pulling into question not just the gendering of genre, but also the genre of gender identity, and reframe the shape and function of the ‘auto’ within autobiographical narrative through experimental strategies. This thesis thus contributes to the ongoing effort to claim a place for life writing as a serious artform within literary studies, and adds to the developing fields of autofiction and autotheory within the study of contemporary literature, both theoretically and by introducing two hitherto unexamined case studies.