Author Description

This varied and challenging collection of contributions written in German and English surveys a wide range of literature in German from a new perspective, namely that of autobiographical writing by women. In sixteen detailed analyses by an international team of scholars the volume explores theories of autobiographical writing and the heterogeneous ways in which texts by women from the Middle Ages onwards have used autobiographical material. The book addresses theoretical issues and thematic complexes as well as uncovering obscured texts and genres, providing both comparative and individual readings of texts as diverse as the spiritual writings of medieval nuns, diaries of the early modern period, and Holocaust memoirs. The book exposes and re-explores received ideas about women and the practice of autobiographical writing and, in doing so, redefines the terms of current debates in the field of autobiography. Beyond that field, it will appeal to those interested in the broader issues of writing by women, German literature and literary theory.