Prior to attending University, the concept of creating a contribution to knowledge was practically meaningless. In the high school environment, the work being undertaken is rarely considered beyond the context of the classroom it is created in. Therefore, creating knowledge means, at best, accumulating it within one’s own mind. During the last two terms of ASTU, however, the continued stressing of the “so what?” and the knowledge contributions it requires has truthfully changed how I perceive this integral part of scholarly work. To illustrate this transformation in understanding, I point to my group’s work with the Gilean Douglas Fonds during our time in the Rare Books and Special Collections here at UBC. For it was in this project, with its use of primary documents not found elsewhere and a publicly available end product with no pre-existing match, that I realized that making a contribution to knowledge that may actually hold some significance on a larger scale is possible.

This shift in thought was a process. Our work in the archives was less the beginning of this thought as it was the culmination of that process. With the introduction to scholarly writing ASTU provided me from the beginning of term one, the need for an identified gap in the state of knowledge (and with it an identified contribution to that SOK) was evident. To contribute in a new way to the state of knowledge, that is, the state of knowledge as seen by scholars across the globe, was a daunting yet exhilarating task. However, the state of knowledge we outlined in our assignments was informed by only a limited selection of scholarly voices and thus we were not quite contributing in the new way we framed our papers to appear as. The state of knowledge was, in a way, hypothetical, and as such so were our contributions to it.

Archival work proved different. It presented us with primary sources seen in few enough places to be investigated in a reasonable amount of time so as to be able to assert that the gap we are claiming exists truly does exist. The video my group and I produced is the only video that appears on YouTube when “Gilean Douglas” is searched: it is a contribution available to the public and potentially useful to other scholars or interested others.

A scholarly investigation of any kind has no purpose if not to contribute to what knowledge already exists. ASTU did not teach me this. What ASTU did in addressing the concepts of the knowledge gap and contribution is allow for me to consider myself a scholar. In a sense, the incorporation of a more personal reflective note for this post is an accurate representation of my argument: this year introduced me to the responsibilities and methods of the scholar, but the biggest change was thinking of myself as one.

References

Douglas, Gilean fonds. University of British Columbia Library Rare Books and Special Collections, Vancouver, Canada.

Fred Wah’s Diamond Grill is a fascinating work of literature addressing the experiences of Wah’s family as Chinese Canadians around the 1950’s. It addresses questions of racism, identity, cultural and individual memory, and various other themes not uncommon in life narrative addressing a group of marginalized individuals within a society. Only Wah’s work is not quite life narrative. In fact, Diamond Grill has been classified under numerous names. Wah considers his piece a biofiction, “largely about hybridity” (Wah 178) in both content and form. He utilizes prose in both a more fictional and nonfictional manner, along with archival pieces, recipes, and poems in Diamond Grill. However, perhaps the most interesting aspect of his writing is the poetic language he uses throughout (even when recalling something more like a work of life narrative).

This post is in response to pages 60 and 139 of Diamond Grill, on which Wah gives entries that consist solely of footnotes. These pages are archival in their nature, introducing outside text into Wah’s work. However, even here, in another’s work, Wah’s poetic devices are at play. These two pages not only use the poetic device of space, but do so in a manner that highlights the presence of an archival silence. An “archival silence” can refer to any voice(s) that is altered or excluded from being preserved in an archive (Carter 216). Archival silences can have enormous impacts on “the state of societal memory” (219) and thus can lead to questions of cultural and personal identity, pages 60 and 139 reflect these questions. Page 60 describes the limiting of Chinese immigration into the United States as being directly related to the Chinese not taking kindly to poker, and in doing so proposes a re-imagination of a Chinese population that had a different view on the matter. The Chinese-American population was marginalized and its voice suppressed. The view on poker that this excerpt suggests the Chinese hold conflicting with the information Wah provides regarding his family’s gambling history suggests that disparities exist between the various voices addressing Chinese culture. The last two sentences on page 139 reads “We would rather be anywhere, as long as we are somewhere. We would rather be anyone, as long as we are someone.”. These sentences speak to the need to assert identity and voice; they are what allows for this passage to be a call for voice.

As Carter argues, “the naming of silence subverts it” (222) and these sentences name the silence. Then, with the knowledge of a gap and a fear of that gap, the use of poetic space can be understood as meaningful. In poetry, space can be utilized as “an integral part of the meaning, creating clearly distinguishable gaps and interruptions” (poetry beyond). The space left on either page leaves room for questions, but specifically within the context of archives it creates almost visualized silences. The title portions of either page create apprehension for answers, but this apprehension is not alleviated with answers, simply space. Silence.

Exploring the intentions of an author is dangerous for a scholar, and with another author this format could be excused as simply that. However, Wah is a poet, and whilst it isn’t our place to assume, it is ours to consider that he deliberately used the methods he is already familiar with in crafting Diamond Grill. The intersections within this biofiction between poetry and archival work is doubtless far more extensive than simply these two pages, and better understanding one may certainly provide further insight into the other.

Works Cited

Carter, Rodney G. S. “Of Things Said and Unsaid: Power, Archival Silences, and Power in Silence.” Archivaria, no. 61, 2006, pp. 215-233. Archivaria, http://archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/view/12541/13687. Accessed 25 Feb. 2017.

Goellnicht, Donald. “Fred Wah.” The Canadian Encyclopedia, www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/fred-wah/. Accessed 12 Mar. 2017.

“Space – Poetry Beyond Text.” Poetry Beyond Text, www.poetrybeyondtext.org/space.html. Accessed 12 Mar. 2017.

Wah, Fred. Diamond Grill: 10th Anniversary. Edmonton, NeWest Press, 2008.

PostSecret is a curious research site to consider life narrative because it is anonymous, not only to an individual, but to a group. Anonymity is occasionally used in life narrative, however, most often it negates the individual to tell the story of a particular group, often one that has been historically or is currently considered marginalized (and even then, it is more likely to be considered a work of fiction). The only identifiable individual behind PostSecret is Frank Warren, it’s creator. Unattributed artists (who are aware in advance that they will not be named) create the secrets and the artwork, leaving Warren to simply sift through what has been sent to him and decide what to post on the blog when. The question surrounding this site is how something that considers itself an “ongoing community art project” can be considered by scholars as a form life narrative, even when there is no clearly identifiable life nor lives that it narrates.

The main page of PostSecret mentions little of its creator, Frank Warren. However, clicking on a link to postsecretlive.com brings the browser to a page dedicated almost entirely to Warren. The comments highlight on the main page focus less on his work than on him as an individual. Nine images when hovered over provide a brief description of what the pages they lead to, only three of those nine do not give Warren’s name as the very first words. Nine of the twelve images on the website are of Warren, not including the background, which is also of Warren. His image permeates the website, a website entitled postsecretlive.com, inferring that he represents PostSecret when it is not being seen as a blog. Warren does not claim to have created the secrets being used in his blog, however, he has benefited hugely at the hands of other’s labor, bringing about questions of agency and publication ethics. However, literary scholars may choose to ask questions more focused on the type of life narrative PostSecret creates: It would seem to create a sort of collective narrative of the artists contributing, but is it also creating a narrative of Warren’s life, and how do these two narratives relate and interact.

Again, PostSecret’s main page keeps Warren relatively separate from the equation, but, it provides links to alternative media that highlights his role in the matter. Even the official PostSecret Facebook page, advertised on the right-hand side of the blog, uses a photo of Warren as its profile picture. Warren orchestrates the existing secrets and does a lot of public speaking regarding the site. In a way, he fulfils a role similar to that of an editor for the more common prose life narrative (whilst taking on the supplementary work that an author may normally do such as speaking publicly of “his work”), but receives the public spotlight generally reserved for those who create content (not simply organize and publicize it). True scholarly investigation (the likes of which this blog post admittedly is not) should work to investigate this research site as an example of a life narrative in which the identity of the life being narrated is unclear and to relate it to the more typical interactions between identified (non-anonymous) authors and the individuals who work with text during the process of publication.

References:

http://postsecret.com/

Warren, Frank. “PostSecret.” PostSecret. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Feb. 2017. <http://postsecret.com/>.

In her analysis of Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, Heather Chute describes how the form of graphic narrative allows for a unique depiction of trauma, largely through “its sometimes consonant, sometimes dissonant visual and verbal narratives” (Chute 94) allowing for the reader to perceive an aspect of trauma beyond that represented in words. Chute states that Satrapi uses a “disjuncture between narration and image” to “create a complex autobiographical fabric” (96) and that this is a testament to the potential for graphic narrative to be not only autobiographical, but to bring to the genre ways of counteracting “dominant tropes of unspeakability, invisibility, and inaudibility” surrounding trauma narrative (93). This sort of visual-verbal interaction occurs within prose life narrative as well, generally, this interaction is considerably more consonant as it is through the verbal that the visual is imagined. However, how does the dynamic of understanding trauma change when the reader’s imagined visual understanding exceeds that which the author could have seen himself; if, for instance, the author is blind.

Ryan Knighton’s Cockeyed depicts his transition into blindness as time passes. Knighton, as any skilled author, uses language to allow for the reader to feel as if they are in his place. Whilst it may be pointless to imagine understanding how “the reader” will react to any particular moment of the memoir, it is reasonable to assume that the reader visually imagines considerably more than what the blind Knighton can see. To clarify, Knighton is not fully blind during the majority of the memoir, however, his sight is incomplete at its best. The imagery we see accompanying him in his memoir is essentially all imagined (with some guiding verbal help), however, that is not to suggest that it does not exist. In fact, even though chute’s work addresses a piece with tangible, visual storytelling, she highlights the importance of this imagined visual. Chute uses multiple examples from Persepolis in which the young Satrapi (whom in this context Chute considers “Marji”) imagines horrors she herself did not witness. Chute argues that these imagined scenes, which fill panels with simplistic, comprehendible images of orchestrated executions, torture, and revolt, highlight a “child’s-eye rendition of trauma”, serving a purpose in their disjuncture (98).

Here is where Cockeyed comes in. Most pieces of prose use the verbal to form a visual image, always leaving some room for imagination. Cockeyed does this as well, but in the story of a blind man, the portion of the scene imagined outside the details provided in the verbal both by the reader and Knighton himself grows tremendously, increasing the disjuncture between the verbal and the visual. The question then becomes that if the disjuncture in Persepolis serves as big a purpose as Chute claims, then might the disjuncture in Cockeyed also have some latent effect on understanding trauma or disability (two words not to be considered synonyms, but potentially related)?

Through Chute’s writing we see what Marji can imagine realistically and what she can’t quite yet, as exemplified in two of the panels Chute analyzes in the passage, “The Heroes” (101). In talking about scenes of torture, Marji depicts what she imagines prisoners suffering. Chute claims that “while we are supposed to understand these depictions as the child Marji’s envisionings, they are plausible visualizations” (101). Chute than continues to say that Marji’s depiction of a man being cut into pieces is not plausible, showing “what Marji cannot yet realistically imagine” (102). Marji’s perspective changes as she grows older, but her imagined view of these events, Chute argues, “depict[s] historical trauma more effectively, more horrifically, than does realism” (102). In Cockeyed, we see Knighton’s need for imagination growing as his sight decreases, he gives less, therefore the reader can project themselves onto his character more. In his case, the disjuncture serves largely as a reminder of what he is experiencing, that is, going blind; as well as a sort of invitation for the reader to experience that change with him. Knighton’s memoir does not draw such direct attention to this disjuncture as does Persepolis, as he does not have any tangible visual storytelling, however, understanding Chute’s argument allows us to better comprehend how the visual can exist through the verbal.

References:

Knighton, Ryan. Cockeyed: A Memoir. New York: Public Affairs, 2006. Print.

Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis. New York, NY: Pantheon, 2003. Print.

Chute, Hillary. “The Texture of Retracing in Marjane Satrapi’s “Persepolis”.” Women’s Studies Quarterly 36.1/2, Witness (2008): 92-110. JSTOR. Web. 13 Jan. 2017.

What follows is a playlist that I have chosen as an autobiographical representation of my own life. It is not a list of my favorite songs, nor is an attempt to appear cultured in various genres of music. Quite simply, it is a chronicle of the key songs that I have listened to as I’ve gotten older. Each song I have chosen carries special meaning to me. In some cases, the song itself has had an effect on my life, in most, however, it is the memories associated with the song that make it so important. The earliest songs I remember from my childhood are on top. As you go further down in the list you approach modern day. I have chosen not to include more than one song from each artist. As memory is quite unreliable, the timeline of these songs is of course inaccurate, but I have organized them from oldest to newest (to me) to the best of my ability.

I chose to create a playlist because I feel that it is the best way I can give you a feel for who I am without writing a more substantial piece of Autobiography. My music taste has changed with me over time, and it’s that progression that I am most interested in conveying to you. One thing to note about this playlist is that I pay closer attention to the lyrics than the beat in most cases, which is true for some of you and not others. That being said, a few of these songs have very few, if any, lyrics.  I have chosen to keep the list short for the sake of anyone wishing to listen to all of it. Seeing as you likely will have neither the time nor the inclination to do that, however, I would recommend listening to the first and the last, and perhaps even that you pick one of the others at random. I would love to know how many of these you had heard of before now, as well as if any surprised you!

(song- Artist)

Silver Thunderbird- Marc Cohn

Faithfully- Journey

2112- Rush

Headstrong- Trapt

Her Diamonds- Rob Thomas

A Horse With No Name- America

In Color- Jamey Johnson

Times- Tenth Avenue North

Keep Your Eyes Open- Needtobreathe

How He Loves Us- John Mark McMillian

Animus Vox- Glitch Mob

Your Hand in Mine- Explosions in the Sky

The Men That Drive Me Places- Ben Rector

Notes:

• Only after writing this have I realized that both the first and last songs have to do with automobiles.
• Ben rector and Needtobreathe are currently my two favorite artists.
• Explosions in the Sky makes excellent music to study to.

In 1928, sociologists Dorothy Swaine and William Isaac Thomas formulated a theory later named the Thomas Theorem (Wikipedia). The Thomas Theorem states that “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences” (Wiki). What the Thomas theorem means is that regardless of the truth to a situation, it is the perceived truth that will determine how the outcome is interpreted and even the outcome itself. The Thomas Theorem is closely linked with the self-fulfilling prophecy, a term created by Robert Merton which can be defined as “a false definition of the situation evoking a new behavior which makes the originally false conception come true” (Biggs).

In Dany Laferriere’s The World is Moving Around Me, he depicts the events during and surrounding the 2010 earthquake that devastated his home country of Haiti. He explains that in writing his memoir he hopes not only to depict the earthquake accurately, but to depict Haiti accurately, something he argues the outside world has failed to do through international media.

“And now here comes a new label that is going to bury us completely: Haiti is a cursed country. Some Haitians, at the end of their rope, are even starting to believe it. […] The only place to fight that label is where it germinated: in Western opinion.” (Laferriere 76)

It’s in this idea of media representation where the Thomas Theorem and the self-fulfilling prophecy become relevant to life narrative. Applying the self-fulfilling prophecy in this case may look something like this: the media says Haiti is cursed, Haitians believe it, they then act in a way that further supports the idea that it is cursed. Now whilst a “curse” may be a difficult thing for any scholar or scientist to identify, the phrase could just as easily be something like “Haiti is more prone to devastating events than other countries”, which is considerably more identifiable as “Devastating events” (some, that is) can be caused by humans and thus can be subject to the self-fulfilling prophecy.

Laferriere is identifying in this passage and in this book something that sociologists may see as a real problem: how the hegemonic way of looking at Haiti could actually in a way be causing Haiti some of its troubles. That being said, it clearly was not this dominant viewpoint that caused the 2010 earthquake. But, it is this dominant viewpoint that causes international onlookers to attribute a tragedy that could have easily occurred in another part of the world to the idea that Haiti is “cursed”. And, if the Thomas Theorem and Laferriere are to be believed, then it could be this hegemonic text that is contributing to the issues that have plagued Haiti for some time.

Having this sociological knowledge assists the literary scholar in that it highlights the very real need for counter-hegemonic text in life narrative and the equally real effects of failing to have diversity in how something, such as a country, disability, or race, is described in text.  How the international community views Haiti is of course beyond the realm of formal life narrative, taking its biggest influence from the media (which can often be its own form of life narrative). However, in The World is Moving Around Me, Dany Laferriere uses his writing to try and fight the dominant and negative view that the world has developed surrounding his home country of Haiti.

References:

http://users.ox.ac.uk/~sfos0060/prophecies.shtml (definition of Self-fulfilling Prophecy) (Biggs)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_theorem    (definition of the Thomas Theorem) (wiki)

Laferriere, Dany. The World Is Moving around Me: A Memoir of the Haiti Earthquake. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp, 2013. Print

by Sam Zattera

In his investigation into how disability narrative is portrayed, Couser divides the pieces he analyzes into five different forms of rhetoric. He ends by discussing Ruth Sienkiewicz-Mercer and Steven B. Kaplan’s I Raise My Eyes to Say Yes. Ruth, a woman with severe cerebral palsy, is misdiagnosed and implemented into a state hospital where her intelligence is ignored and neglected by the staff (Couser 43). In comparing her story to slave narrative and testimonios, Couser emphasizes how it challenges the institutionalization of the disabled through using Sienkiewicz-Mercer’s individual narrative to address the plight of the “disabled” group as a whole. The focus here is not on disability within the individual, but disability within society.

What Couser is employing here, without naming it as such, is something that sociologist C Wright Mills calls the sociological imagination. In The Sociological Imagination Mills highlights the need for sociologists, as well as scholars of other fields, to understand the relationship between personal troubles and public issues (Mills 1). Where Couser’s and Mills’ work intersect is in this relationship. A personal trouble, as Mills defines it, is a product of the individual and does not provide an accurate representation of or have an effect on society as a whole (Mills 1). A public issue, on the other hand, arises from society itself and manifests in the form of the private troubles for many individuals (Mills 1). Where a single man’s unemployment is a personal trouble on its own, if put into a larger context it may become clear that that man’s unemployment is the direct result of the larger economic system failing him, therefore making what could have been a personal trouble into a public issue.

Without stating it, Couser employs this mentality to the rhetoric of disability narrative. I Raise My Eyes to Say Yes differs from the other texts he investigates in that it focuses on disability as a public issue and not as a personal trouble. In explaining what exactly the rhetoric of emancipation is, Couser states this:

                 “The comic resolution [of Sienkiewicz-Mercer’s story] is not a function of removing or correcting her impairments, but of getting the world to accommodate them–of removing the physical, social, and cultural obstacles to her integration into the “mainstream”” (Couser 44).

The counterhegemonic potential of the rhetoric of emancipation lies in its use of the sociological imagination and in its redrawing of the line separating private trouble and public issue when it comes to disability. Couser argues that understanding the social construction around disability is what sets some recent disability narrative apart from what has come before it (Couser 44). If understanding disability as a social construct proves as helpful as Couser’s writing suggests in producing change than connecting that world of literature to that of the sociologist could quicken the pace of that change. Sociology may not be a commonplace topic in discussion among the public, but it certainly is more abundant than discussion of autobiography. If, as Couser argues, the primary reason for a lack of counterhegemonic disability autobiography is cultural constraints (Couser 47), then portraying his work through a more overtly sociological perspective may more effectively help to loosen those constraints.

Works Cited:

Couser, G. Thomas. Signifying Bodies: Disability in Contemporary Life Writing. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan, 2009. Print.

Mills, C. Wright. The Sociological Imagination. New York: Oxford UP, 1959. Print.

Sam Zattera

With 1,865,050 reviews on www.goodreads.com, Anne Frank’s, The Diary of a Young Girl, boasts an overall rating of a 4.09 out of 5. The reviews posted on Goodreads are part of what Gerard Genette (as described by Whitlock) would classify as epitext (i.e. elements from outside of the text that pertain to it). The benefit of analyzing this epitext is that it allows for us as scholars to better understand how readers of The Diary of a Young Girl approach the text as a life narrative.

A common trait among positive reviews is the distinction of The Diary of a Young Girl as a diary and not a novel. This is largely due to the medium of the review website. To elaborate: in a review submitted by reviewer Varsha, she claims,

 “My intention of writing a review for this book is to tell all the negative reviewers to SHUT UP! I am all for everyone’s right to express their opinion but I read a few of the ‘1 star’ reviews and I was shocked to read what a few people had to say about this book. Before making an opinion I suggest people to keep a few things in mind:”.

Varsha’s review highlights an important division within the readership of The Diary of a Young Girl. This excerpt does not, however, successfully capture where precisely that division lies. That form of clarification is better found in her next point.

“This is someone’s DIARY not a book meant to entertain people”

This statement is where the main division seemed to lie. The primary reason given by those reviewers who rated the text poorly was that it was too boring. The counter argument to this as provided by Varsha (a representative of a larger group of reviewers) is that the text was not intended to be a piece of entertainment and as such cannot be judged like one. Some readers, it would seem, fail to see the value of Frank’s story as a life narrative in their desire for a more dramatized genre approach.

However, the reviews on Goodreads would suggest that other readers gave Frank’s narrative a significance in its relation to the larger events of the Holocaust and the war. Nilesh Kashyap’s review gives an excellent example of this creation of meaning, highlighted below.

“This is not a book to enjoy much; we read it to gain the insight of hardships that people had to go through during this holocaust. Through this book she give us best view of the worst of the world. No one has ever benefitted from war; all it gives is pain and misery.
All this being said there is nothing to review the book, but accept it as written account of the vices of the war.”

Kashyap’s review suggests several things. For one, it shows us that readers are looking beyond the realm of entertainment that they may use to gauge the quality of a fictional piece such as a novel. Kashyap, like Varsha, recognizes that this is a Diary representative of a piece of history. That being said, his review focuses less on Anne’s particular story and more on how it reflects on the greater historical context as a whole. Kashyap’s emphasis on the importance of Frank’s story as a window into the context of the war suggests that he may understand it more as a testimonio is traditionally understood; with the intertwining of the individual’s narrative and that of a greater political or societal cause. However, Frank’s diary was not written to support a cause. Rather, Kashyap, a representative of the “common” reader, has given it that meaning. In doing so, however, part of what life narrative is is lost. In simplifying the life narrative of Frank to simply an “account of the vices of the war” (Kashyap), readers are ignoring the story of Frank’s life in and of itself.

A third review, submitted by user Pollopicu, confirms this idea.

“Whoever thinks this books is boring is because they simply fail to realize, or even imagine the conditions in which this diary was written under. To think how this young girl’s personal life continued beyond the details of the war is rather remarkable.”

Pollopicu, like Kashyap, seems to be focused on the idea of Frank’s diary as a product of the war and the holocaust. Frank tended to be seen by those who gave the text a high rating as primarily either a Jew under Nazi controlled Netherlands or as a little girl during war time. Frank happens to be both of these. The importance of understanding this, however, is that it implies that to readers Frank’s identity, and with it the identity of her diaries, is inseparable from this greater context. Those who gave the text negative reviews, according to Pollopicu, failed to appreciate that context in relation to Frank’s work. Therefore it would seem that to the majority of everyday readers The Diary of a Young Girl is primarily a testament to war time and its author, Anne Frank, is recognized first as a representative of the Jewish people, and not as an individual simply writing out her life.

References:

Whitlock, Gillian. “Introduction: Word Made Flesh.” Soft Weapons: Autobiography in Transit. Chicago: U of Chicago, 2007. N. pag. Print

Varsha, “A Review of The Diary of a Young Girl” Anne Frank, Goodreads, N.P. 26, Sep. 2013. Web. 06, Oct. 2016. http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/100302406?book_show_action=true&from_review_page=1

Kashyap, Nilesh, “A Review of The Diary of a Young Girl” Anne Frank, Goodreads, N.P. 05, Apr. 2012. Web. 06, Oct. 2016.

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/226507617?book_show_action=true&from_review_page=1

Pollopicu, “A Review of The Diary of a Young Girl” Anne Frank, Goodreads, N.P. 08, Jun. 2015. Web. 06, Oct. 2016.

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/78979175?book_show_action=true&from_review_page=1

Sam Zattera

Following the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp by the Soviet Union in early January 1945, Otto Frank returned home to the Netherlands (Stichting). There he was given the writings of his late daughter, Anne, by his old business assistants who had saved them (Stichting). Anne had written of her situation during the years her family spent in hiding, and then rewritten them under the possibility that they may be formed into a novel so as to be published (Stichting). Otto completed that wish, translating her writing from Danish to German and compiling her various writings into one piece and printing it out (Stichting). This found its way to a couple of historians, who wrote an article in a newspaper about it.  In response to the article, publishers became interested, eventually taking the piece, editing it, and publishing it as a book entitled Het Achterhuis (Stichting). This collection of dairy entries has since been translated into sixty languages, and is well known around the world (Noonan).

What started as one diary and a collection of notebooks became one coherent piece, an article, a book, a play, a movie, a website, et cetera (Stichting). This trend will likely continue as new forms of media continue to develop. With each translation of language, each new format, each new individual that becomes involved, the content of the piece itself is shifted. Does this mean that the authenticity of the piece is lost? If Anne’s Diary is viewed as solely her life narrative than certainly it would. However, if her work is viewed as a collective life narrative then each change, so long as it is recognized, serves as a way of better understanding the context surrounding the time and place in which it is changed.

Knowing that the original publishers of Het Achterhuis edited portions of it because they felt that Anne was too open regrading her sexuality (Stichting) can allow us scholars to understand aspects of the culture in which it was published in, and the purpose for which it was published. In this way, knowledge of the original piece is perhaps lost at the expense of new, indirect knowledge of the greater social context.

So the question arises: should scholars be more concerned with preserving one form of knowledge by preventing (to the best of our abilities) change to that knowledge, or should we be willing to sacrifice some knowledge so as to allow for the production of something new? Can both be done? Yes, the original text written by Anne Frank remains, but if the general public only ever sees a version altered in both language and medium, does it matter? Arguably, knowledge has no point if it is not spread, and so if the only portion of Anne’s story that is spread has been translated, can that portion be considered her life narrative? Does its primary value lie in being her life narrative or that of a collective group of individuals across time? We, as scholars, must decide which is more important in the pursuit of accumulating knowledge: preservation or evolution.

References:

Stichting, Anne Frank. “The Story of Anne Frank: Anne Frank’s Diary Is Published.” Anne Frank House. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Sept. 2016.

Stichting, Anne Frank. “Anne Frank’s Hostpry: The Different Versions of Anne’s Diary.” Anne Frank House. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Sept. 2016.

Noonan, John. “On This Day: Anne Frank’s Diary Published.” On This Day: Anne Frank’s Diary Published. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Sept. 2016.