Life Writing：A Rich and Versatile Field
E：Would you please brief your own experience working in the field of life writing? What are your lessons from it?
TC：I entered the field of life writing in the 1970s（before the term was in use） when I wrote my doctoral dissertation in American Studies on the“prophetic mode” of American autobiography. As an English professor for the next thirty years，I mostly taught courses about“literary” texts； I was rarely able to teach autobiography or memoir. This changed somewhat with the development of a graduate program in English and creative writing in my final years at Hofstra University，from which I retired in 2011.
Life writing was always my research specialty，but it led me into other fields in which I developed courses. For example，my interest in a major Native American autobiography，Black Elk Speaks，led me to develop a course Native American literature. And in the 1990s，an interest in emerging memoirs of illness and disability led me into the new field of Disability Studies，in which I taught courses and founded an undergraduate program at Hofstra. So for me life writing has been not only a rich area on its own but also a platform from which I could move laterally as my interests changed.
Life writing has clearly been a rich and versatile field for me，allowing me great flexibility.On the other hand，jobs are very rarely advertised in life writing as such； thus，in the United States，most academics who“do” life writing got jobs under the rubrics of more established fields such as American or British literature，Women's studies，and so on.
E.Would you please give us an overview of the life writing development in your country in recent years? What are the success and problems? Could you recommend one or two of the life writings published in recent years? What is the worth do you think?
TC：The Anglophone world— and especially the United States— has experienced a memoir boom in the last several decades：memoirs have become very popular with general readers，and the genre has become more prestigious，competing with the novel. Significantly，the boom has been driven not by celebrity memoirs，which have long been popular，but by“nobody” memoirs：narratives by individuals previously unknown. Many of these authors have been young people，especially women，and/or members of ethnic，religious，or other minorities（people with disabilities，gays and lesbians）. Indeed，memoir booms have tracked rights movements：Civil Rights，Women's Rights，Gay Pride，Disability Rights，and so on. Thus，memoir and autobiography have been realizing their potential as the most democratic，because most accessible，literary genres. In theory，anyone can write one. Indeed，you don't have to write it yourself； you can tell your story to，or through，a collaborator.
While many nobody memoirs have been“one-offs”— written about a single exceptional experience— the boom has also been stimulated by very successful memoirs by professional writers— many of whom have Masters of Fine Arts degrees and/or teach creative writing. Memoir writing is now commonly taught on a regular basis in graduate programs as a literary genre on a par with its sister genre，the novel. And to an unprecedented extent，there are professional writers for whom memoir is the default genre— serial memoirists.
If there is a problem with this broad development，it may be what I see as the over-novelization of the memoir. That is，the rise in the prestige of memoir as a literary genre has been accompanied by a tendency to write in a mode that I have termed“hi-def” or“hi-res”（by analogy with contemporary visual media）. This mode favors scene over summary，showing over telling； it deploys a great deal of detail and dialogue. Indeed，it moves toward the status of drama，which，by definition，consists of nothing but scene. Sometimes，it is even written in the present tense，rather than the past tense，as though it is happening. This creates a sense of immediacy that many readers like and value. On the other hand，this mode of memoir tends to short circuit retrospection by shortening the distance between the I-then（the experiencing subject） and the I-now（the reflecting writer）. For me，this constitutes a loss in moral seriousness and self-examination. Such memoirs foreground past events without exploring how the writer developed from the person who experienced those events years，or decades，earlier.
Some new niche genres work against this trend. One is the filial narrative，in which a child narrates the life of a parent（I call it patriography if the parent is a father； matriography if it's a mother）. As the parents of the post-war（baby-boom） generation age and die，many baby-boomers have confronted their own mortality and reflected on how they were raised. A significant subgenre of the filial narrative is the narrative of Alzheimer's，usually written by an adult child，typically a daughter，who has served as a carer for an aging parent. These narratives generally reflect explicitly on the authors' relation to their parents—whether they affiliate with，or disaffiliate from，those parents.
A more obvious trend in life writing has been the proliferation of the use of electronic and social media for self-representation，beyond what was traditionally considered life writing：blogs，tweets，Facebook，selfies，and so on. In response，much contemporary work by scholars in the field explores the significance of new modes and genres of self-representation—including the graphic“novel”（which is often actually a memoir）.Rising generations have access to many more venues for self-representation than ever before； life writing can thus be more“inclusive” of diverse experiences. On the other hand，the production of so much life writing by so many people in so many formats can diffuse its impact. Much of it is limited to networks of friends and acquaintances. And serious questions arise as to the status of the discrete individual when subjectivity is circulates in new media and when personal privacy is increasingly under threat.“Identity theft” is the dark side of this new phenomenon.
E.Would you please give us an overview of life writing theories popular in recent years in your country? What issues concern the life writing theorists most in your country? What are the leading works in life writing theories in recent years?
TC：This is a difficult question to answer briefly because of the richness and variety of the field. Of course，a good deal of work today explores relationality in life writing—rather than the once standard view of autobiography as the individualistic act of an autonomous self.
Theories of gender，race，and minority identities continue to be useful. And attention is being paid to the use of life writing，world-wide，to provide testimony opposing oppression and discrimination.
And as I said earlier，the notion of the subject is undergoing reexamination in an age in which electronic representation is so common. Rather than speak of a self，an integrated autonomous individual，we are more likely to speak of a subject，a virtual self，even an avatar，constituted through media that are widely accessible but not necessarily durable.
For academics，the standard introduction to the field continues to be Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson's Reading Autobiography，now in a revised second edition.（The authors retained the term“autobiography” even though“memoir” is the term of art today，and both genres are challenged by other media.） For the undergraduate and general reader，I would recommend my recent book，Memoir：An Introduction（Oxford UP，2012）.
E.More fictitious elements are added into life writing in a great many works now. In some cases，even important characters or events are invented. Some biographer even made believe the stories that he befriended with the late biographical subject. Do you approve of this method? Is this the trend? How do you define auto/biographical truth?
TC：I think that it is healthy for life writing to recognize and acknowledge its own partiality，subjectivity，and inevitable fictiveness. But I think that writers need to be careful in deploying elements of invention and art. I recommend“methodological transparency”— that is，the disclosure to readers，perhaps in a preface，of any conscious or strategic departures from traditional biographical methods. Readers may feel betrayed if they discover these on their own，or if they are revealed by fact-checkers.
The kind of life writing matters. No one expects the same fidelity to the record from writerly or comic memoirs as from memoirs in a more historical vein，such as those written by former government officials. And of course no one should assume a false identity，as has often been done，especially with victim statuses，like that of Holocaust survivor.
E. The genre of life writing has long been disputed. The controversy centers on whether it is a branch of history or a branch of literature. Some also claim that it should be an independent genre. What is your opinion on this debate? How do you define your identity in writing a life?
As I understand it，the term life writing comprises a number of genres that are distinct in conception（though not always in practice）. In the Anglophone world，life writing is seen as straddling the border between history and“literature.” In the past，it suffered from being considered non-or sub-literary and used mainly as historical or biographical“evidence.” So it has been important to recognize that，like all narrative，life writing is always mediated，always artful，to some degree：not a passive，faithful“record” of a life，but a retrospective construction and interpretation of it.
On the other hand，readers read different genres differently，in response to generic cues. And as Philippe Lejeune and others have been saying，genres like memoir and autobiography seem to invite readers into a pact or implicit agreement to convey some kind of truth about the author. And to violate that“autobiographical pact”— to depart too far from what can be verified— can be dangerous，as some recent memoirists have discovered to their embarrassment.
E.With the increase of memoir，diary，letter and oral history，these sub-genres exert greater influence than auto/biography. What is your comment on this phenomenon? Should they be included in biography or autobiography? Why?
TC：I'm not sure I agree that diary，letters，and oral history exert greater influence than traditional auto/biography. I think that genres intended for publication still dominate the literary marketplace and the academic field，although that is changing. The distinction between memoir and autobiography is complicated，but however you make it，memoir has had more influence recently than formerly. All of these genres deserve attention as distinct forms of life writing； the field needs to be inclusive，rather than exclusive； egalitarian rather than hierarchical. But the strengths，weaknesses，limitations of all genres，and the distinctions among them，need to be kept in mind. We may regard various modes and genres of life writing as potentially equal in value but that is not to say that they are identical.
G.Thomas Couser is professor of The Center for the Study of Social Difference at Columbia University. He retired in 2011 from Hofstra University，where he was a professor of English and founding director of the Disability Studies Program. He has been awarded three Fellowships by the National Endowment for the Humanities，and he is the author of many books，including American Autobiography：The Prophetic Mode（1979），Altered Egos：Authority in American Autobiography（1989），Vulnerable Subjects：Ethics and Life Writing（2004），Signifying Bodies：Disability and Contemporary Life Writing（2009） and Memoir：An Introduction（2011）.
[1] TC-Thomas Couser；E-editor.