The philosophy of autobiography : body & text /

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction 1. The Crucified: Friedrich Nietzsche's Ecce Homo 2. The Mahatma: M.K. Gandhi's The Story of My Experiments with Truth 3. The Untouchable: B.R. Ambedkar’s Waiting for a Visa 4. The Nigger: Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings 5. The Boxer: Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast 6. The Survivor: Elie Wiesel's Night 7. The Dalit: Daya Pawar's Baluta 8. The Poet: Kamala Das' My Story 9. The Samurai: Yukio Mishima's Sun and Steel 10. The Fake: Andy Warhol's The Philosophy of Andy Warhol 11. The Mouse: Art Spiegelman's MAUS 12. The Daughter: Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis. Epilogue.

This book offers intimate readings of a diverse range of global autobiographical literature with an emphasis on the (re)presentation of the physical body. The twelve texts presented here include philosophical autobiography (Nietzsche), autobiographies of self-experimentation (Gandhi and Mishima), literary autobiography (Hemingway, Das) as well as other genres of autobiography, including the graphic novel (Spiegelman, Satrapi), as also documentations of tragedy and injustice and subsequent spiritual overcoming (Ambedkar, Pawar, Angelou, Wiesel).In exploring different literary forms and orientations of the autobiographies, the work remains constantly attuned to the physical body, a focus generally absent from literary criticism and philosophy or study of leading historical personages, with the exception of patches within phenomenological philosophy and feminism. The book delves into how the authors treated here deal with the flesh through their autobiographical writing and in what way they embody the essential relationship between flesh, spirit and word. It analyses some seminal texts such as Ecce Homo, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, Waiting for a Visa, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, A Moveable Feast, Night, Baluta, My Story, Sun and Steel, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol, MAUS and Persepolis. Lucid, bold and authoritative, this book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of philosophy, literature, gender studies, political philosophy, media and popular culture, social exclusion, and race and discrimination studies.