When 'mixing memory and desire'

Subtitle:imaginative revisions and the productive power of nostalgia in Rebecca Brown's oughtabiographies

English: This essay focuses on the oughtabiographies of the contemporary lesbian writer Rebecca Brown, which function as imaginative vehicles with which the author (re)writes her own past the way it should have been. Thus her work will be seen to extend the realm of longing usually reserved for the future into the past, thereby highlighting the role of desire and the value of narrative truth in personal history writing. Moreover, Browns active reworkings of her personal past allow for a critical reappraisal of the concept of nostalgia, which is usually dismissed as conservative or passive.

Publication year:2014

Keywords:A1 Journal article

Accessibility:Closed