Autotheory: History and Key Facts
Autotheory is a literary tradition involving the combination of the narrative forms of autobiography, memoir, and critical theory.
Autotheory is a literary tradition involving the combination of the narrative forms of autobiography, memoir, and critical theory. Works of autotheory involve a first-person account of an author’s life blended with research investigations. Works of autotheory might bring in broader questions in philosophy, literary theory, social structures, science and culture to interpret the politics and history within personal experiences.
Discussions surrounding Paul B. Preciado's 2013 book Testo Junkie popularized the term.
Lauren Fournier suggests autotheory is rooted in creative and critical practice in feminist contexts. Fournier describes autotheory as a site of resistance, where feminist writers, artists, and scholars brought political questions to bear in their own lives, in contrast to the situated distance between the writer and their subject matter or absence of the writer in their work that is prominent in academic research across disciplines. Ralph Clare suggests autotheory is adjacent to the literary movement autofiction, but distinct in that it is a direct response and form of resistance to the institutionalization of theory.
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