The non-fiction narrative self has increasingly appeared in a variety of genres over the last fifty years — in autofiction, the autobiographical novel, in creative or speculative non-fiction, New and Gonzo journalism, and autotheory, as well as across a range of digital platforms that challenge traditional life writing conventions. This boom in life stories has much to do with what Rob Nixon (2012) calls “part of a broader rise in the cultural industrialization of the real — or at least the real’s aura.” The idea of “the real’s aura” seems especially pertinent today in our post-truth world where empiricism is framed as suspect from a number of different political and philosophical perspectives. Hybrid forms of life narrative like autofiction often highlight acts of mediation; they challenge the divide between fiction and non-fiction, while highlighting and undermining the public's investment in the so-called “real.” Do these blurred lines between the fictional and non-fictional self provide a critical view of the self in a post-truth age, or do they simply capitulate to late capitalist desires for immediacy, as Anna Kornbluh suggests? How do they offer an opportunity to facilitate new articulations of the self in a moment of crisis — as well as a method for replicating neoliberalism’s reduction of all meaning to the individual? How do we distinguish between the fictional and non-fictional narrative alongside the rise of GenAI and hyperrealist “deepfakes?” 

This seminar is interested in the playful and critical ways in which the self has been constructed through various genres. Key to our interest is the telling of the stories of the self and the ways in which those stories can be creatively reinvented, or critically told in diverse ways that challenge or subvert generic expectations. Autofictional works are of particular interest as they collapse fiction, nonfiction, and autobiography into texts, thwarting readerly expectations, but we are open to a variety of generic approaches to these questions.

Potential Topics include:

• Exploring what Nixon calls “the grey zone between fiction and non-fiction” 
• Autofictionality and hybrid forms of life writing in a post-truth age
• Autofiction in digital and other new media forms 
• The rise of GenAI and other synthetic media in relation to the non-fictional self
• Autofiction in the writing classroom
• The role of marginalized writers in capitalizing on contemporary autofictions
• Autofiction as a brand or marketing category or a subversion of efforts to be pigeonholed