The Politics & Poetics of Audience Creation in Contemporary Epistolary Memoir

<p>This thesis examines Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous and Kiese Laymon’s Heavy as works of life writing that leverage the epistolary form to engage their direct maternal addressees and audiences beyond them in revision and reconstruction of identity. Secondary audiences are considered in light of Michael Warner’s “Publics and Counterpublics,” and the social affordances of the epistolary form and self-constructive affordances of life writing are analyzed in tandem as a hybrid epistolary memoir form. Specifically, this project explores how the epistolary memoir form affords Vuong and Laymon opportunities for the process of personal, relational, and communal identity construction, particularly around ideas of “American” identity.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

M.A.

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters Thesis

Year

2023

Author dc:creator

• Davis, Sarah M.

Contributors dc:contributor

• R. D. Perry
• Joanna Howard
• Tayana Hardin
• Frederique Chevillot

• Epistolary
• Form
• Identity construction
• Life writing
• Memoir
• Arts and Humanities
• English Language and Literature
• Literature in English, North America
• Literature in English, North America, Ethnic and Cultural Minority

Statement dc:rights

• <p>Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.</p>

Language dc:language

English (eng)

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/2276

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.du.edu:etd-3263