Thomas Couser, Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson, and Gillian Whitlock all remind us that life narratives are commodities that circulate in the global literary marketplace. In that marketplace, these scholars note, some kinds of stories and some kinds of subjects will sell, or can be made to sell. Others can’t or won’t, and we should think about the voices, experiences, and stories that are missing from or fail in the market. Best-sellers and literary failures help us understand the values and expectations of consumers, particularly consumers in the West, and how the market for life narratives can conform to or resist those values and expectations.

To understand these ideas, we have to think about how what we consume is shaped for us: we don’t read in a vacuum. (To get a sense of the network of writers, companies, media, and readers involved in a book’s publication and reception, check out this listicle.) In “Introduction: Word Made Flesh,” Whitlock argues we need to pay attention to the “material processes” of “production, transmission, and reception of autobiographical texts” (14). In particular, she asks us to attend to the “features that surround and cover the text,” what Gerard Genette calls the paratext. There are two aspects of paratext: the peritext (“the covers, introductions, acknowledgements, dedications, blurbs”) and the epitext (“the elements ouside of the bound volume,” including “reviews and criticism across various mass media, movements of the celebrity circuit; the book prizes and the calendar of literary festivals”). When we read paratext, Whitlock suggests we read with these questions in mind:

Who is getting to speak autobiographically, how, and why? To what effect? What becomes a best-seller, and what is remaindered or republished? How do these solicit our attention? What kinds of engagement come into play? How do these appeal to readers, and what kind of consumers are we asked to become? (14)

(For more on paratext, see Smith and Watson 99-102.)

In your next blog post, choose one of our life narratives that you did not write about for the genre analysis, and write an analysis based on EITHER option a or b, below. As you write, think about Whitlock’s questions (as well as your own), as you consider the implications of what you’re observing in these aspects of marketing. Talk about the significance of what you observe, what it helps us to better understand.

• Option A Examine peritext: analyse the jacket design, including the cover image(s), the typeface, whose name(s) are prominent, the book review blurbs on the back and on the first pages of the book, etc. (You’ll need to be able to see these, so that might affect your choice of text.)
• Option B  Examine epitext: Select 3 reviews of the book (e.g., on Amazon, Goodreads, or publisher sites), and identify patterns in them that suggest how the life narrative and the life narrator are being read by consumers.

Remember to follow ethical research practices and good blogging design in your use of links, reporting expressions, and citations.

Posts are due Friday at noon, and comments by Monday noon.

On Monday Sept 19 @ noon your first blog posts are due. The assignment sheet sets out my expectations in detail, and please read those detailed expectations. This week, for your first post, I’ll give you the topic, so you can focus on the work of writing:

• choose one of the four texts we’ll be reading Sept 20-22 (Frank, Equiano, Malala, or Menchu).
• Do some research about the book (remember to keep track of your tabs / texts so that you can link to or cite them), on whatever aspect you find most interesting. For example, you might be interested in the historical context, or information about its reception, publication history, or marketing, or controversies about the book, or whatever.
• Write a 300-500 word post that summarizes (and links to/cites) that information, and then builds on that information to raise interpretive questions you might like to take up about the text itself. By “interpretive questions,” I mean, not information questions (why did this happen, or who is this person), but questions that could initiate discussion or analysis.
• As part of your post, think about how you’ll convey the importance of what you’re talking about: what makes this particular topic compelling to us, as scholar-readers? (That helps move your post out of the personal into the public & research realm.)

Remember to read 5-6 posts by your classmates & post your comments on this blog post by 9:30 am Tuesday.

It’s a good idea to write your posts in Word and save them; in case something goes wrong on WordPress, you have a copy (you can and should also click “save draft” when you are creating your post in WordPress. To insert links, highlight the text you want to link, and click on the tool button that looks that a piece of chain-link. A window will come up and you paste the URL into it.

Let me also reinforce a few expectations about the blogs:

• This is research, not a personal, blog. It’s where you’ll take up an observation and develop it into a point of interpretation. That development happens through your use of evidence-based observations that you explain (and thus isn’t a series of unsupported generalizations about “things” or “people” or other anecdotal remarks).
• Each post should have: a specific premise (I’m going to talk about this thing in order to…, though you don’t need to use that phrase), links, and specific examples. It should not just point things out or summarize others’ ideas, but make a new contribution to the conversation. We will better understand something (an idea, a text, etc.) because you’ve shared your interpretation with us.
• A+ blog posts actively connect to scholarly and popular conversations, incorporating scholarship (readings from class or others they find on their own) to develop their own contributions to those conversations. And of course they acknowledge and provide links to and/or citations for the sources they have drawn upon.

The blogs are a great way to get comfortable writing in public, thinking about ideas in new ways, and connecting our class and the “real world” in really productive ways. So have some fun!

We started mapping our commitments over the semester and that’s got me thinking about time / project management and how we learn how to do it. The Chapman Learning Commons offers a toolkit on time management, and UBC’s Wellness Centre has sessions on work/life balance. Your CAP Peer Mentors will have their own ideas to share with you, too.

While I’m no stranger to procrastination or being “busy” vs being productive, over the years I have learned a few tricks that have made it much easier to manage deadlines and Get Stuff Done (GSD). My #1 approach is based on David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD): it’s a system in which you capture what you need to do, by categories, break each item into “next actions,” and continuously set, assess, and schedule priorities. The Life Hacker blog here gives an excellent overview of GTD’s key principles, but I’ll list some of the things I’ve taken away from it:

• If it takes less than 2 minutes, do it right away (exception: texting in class!). If not, do it in the scheduled time for that kind of task.
• Have a way to capture what you’ve got to do: keep a notebook or use your phone to jot down things you need to remember. This clears your mind and frees up your mental energy because you aren’t fretting about remembering all this stuff. (It also helps when you are writing papers and come up with brilliant ideas when you’re not at your desk!) Allen says this helps you get to “mind like water.”
• Allen doesn’t like “to do” lists. Instead, he proposes “Next Action” lists: what are the smaller actions you’ll need to take to accomplish a big project? (We’ll talk about this more when we break our summary and lit review assignments into steps that you’ll schedule.)
• Recently I’ve started using the calendar template in Word for my capture system: I print off a calendar page, and write out all the things I need to be doing, by category (e.g., “ASTU” is one category), around the edges of the calendar. Then in the squares for each day, I write down the specific smaller action I will take to move that project along. This works for me because I can keep the big picture always in view, and have a daily plan. If I have extra time on a particular day, I can pull something in off the big list. Carry the list / next actions with you, always. (Some people make theirs using Google Docs so it’s always accessible.) 
• Whatever kind of action / to-do list you make, it’s a good idea to schedule your working time (and fun time), and update the action plan at the end of each work session. You’ll know best what you need to do to move things forward when you’ve just finished working on something, rather than the next day when you’re coming back to it.
  • Sub-hint: schedule different kinds of tasks for different times of day. What takes the most energy & focus? Do that when you’re the most energetic and focused (e.g., first thing in the morning). Got some menial work to do (e.g., formatting your Works Cited page)? Schedule that for while you’re watching TV. Etc.

Some other things I’ve learned:

• Keep a landing strip for your stuff: park your keys, wallet, etc. in the same place when you get home. Saves you time looking for stuff or saves you forgetting something you need.
• Pack your bag the night before: see above re: not forgetting stuff.
• Find and use scraps of time: think about the things you can do in 5, 10, or 15 minutes, and pull items off your list. Got 5 mins? Review your lecture notes, read a page in a textbook, update your “next actions” list, etc. Those small scraps of time can really add up to a lot of productive time if you’re prepared to use them.
• If you’re stuck, get things going again by taking back control of some other aspect of life: tidy up your desk, fold your laundry, take out the recycling, etc.
• If there is something I’m avoiding, I set a timer for 15 or 20 minutes and make myself start. I can have a treat of some kind once that timer goes off, but not until then. (Sub-hint: make a list of rewards to give yourself!)

What are your tips and tricks for Getting Stuff Done? I hope you’ll add your own suggestions (or questions) in the comments.

Hello ASTU G01!

Welcome to our class blog, the hub for some of our readings and discussions, and the landing page for the individual research blogs that you will be creating over our two semesters. Pro tip: This week would be a good time for you to set up your own blog (click the links to see how you do that). You’ll be blogging on issues, ideas, and examples related to our course topic of “Soft Weapons: The Global and Local Work of Life Narratives.”

I’m looking forward to meeting all of you on Thursday. Before then, please post a comment on this post to say hello and tell us something about yourself. (What’s one interesting thing you’d like us to know about you?) Let me tell you a bit about me: I teach in the English department as well as CAP, and I specialize in auto/biography studies, particularly digital life narratives; more recently, I’ve started thinking about the convergence of digital and archival lives. Right now I’m co-editing a special issue of the journal a/b: Auto/Biography Studies that focuses on “Teaching Lives,” with my colleague Kate Douglas from Flinders University. I’m also Chair of First-Year Programs in Arts, and a Leo. I have two sons who are starting grades 1 & 3. One of my “lame claims to fame”: I got picked out of the audience to participate in one of the acts at a circus sideshow. (But that was a long time ago.)

This week you might have to do 2 things that many students find intimidating: write an email to a teaching assistant or instructor or – worse! – go to one-on-one office hours. If you’re feeling nervous about those things, help is here! This post gives you a good template to follow in writing a winning email to a professor. (Get yourself a UBC email address, too.) Check out this video if your feeling nervous about the idea of going to see your instructors in office hours. (You too should get “OH”!) Remember you can make an appointment with me using this link (or email me).

I hope your first days at UBC are excellent.

See you on Thursday,

Laurie