Digital Journal Prompt #12
Our final digital journal post is about autohistoria. These are a genre of writing that is intended to blur the lines of fiction and nonfiction. It is also a genre that is often used by writers whose voice lends to social justice endeavors, as Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, and Gloria E. Anzladúa’s all do.
Autohistoria bends genres. In another essay titled “now let us shift ... the path of conocimiento ... innerworks ... public acts,” Anzaldúa writes the following about this genre of essay writing, “Autohistoria is a term I use to describe the genre of writing about one’s personal and collective history using fictive elements, a sort of fictionalized autobiography or memoir" (Anzaldúa 578). Scholar Andrea J. Pitts argues that “from this brief articulation, Anzaldúa appears to point to the manner in which the act of giving meaning to oneself provides a platform for collaborative forms of meaning-making” (357).*
Toni Morrison’s Nobel Lecture also bends genre. She bends a “lecture” or a traditional essay format to a parable. A parable can be defined as a “narrative about human beings presented so as to stress the tacit analogy or parallel, with a general thesis or lesson that the narrator is trying to bring home to his audience” (Abrams 9). The bird is not intended to be a bird.
The two forms connect in that each is read for a message or a lesson. That lesson, though, is not explicit. The reader must allow themselves to be taken in by the writer and must see through the writer’s eyes in a way that helps us as readers to live another’s experiences, as we do when we become attached to a character we connect with strongly.
For this last and final digital journal, please do the following:
Choose one of either Alice Walker’s “Looking for Zora,” Toni Morrison’s “Nobel Lecture,” or Gloria E. Anzaldúa’s “Le Prieta.”
Each of these pieces offers multiple possible messages and /or lessons to be learned. Identify at least one.
Citing the text you have chosen, please describe and/or explain one message you find in the piece.
Your response to this digital journal is due by class time on Wednesday, November 29.