"The Distance … That Had Been Traversed": Education, Identity, and Public Literacy in Tara Westover's Educated and Richard Rodriguez's Hunger of Memory. (30th June 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Blumberg, Ilana M.
• Is Part Of: Auto/biography studies. Volume 36:Number 3(2021)
• Page Start: 603
• Page End: 627
• Publication Date: 2022-06-30
• Subjects: Higher education -- pedagogy -- unwritten lives; Autobiography -- Periodicals; Autobiography; Periodicals; 920.005
• DOI: 10.1080/08989575.2021.2045733
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0898-9575

Abstract

Abstract: These two memoirs of American higher education represent higher education and advanced literacy as forces of social division, dividing their writers from their families and origins, and leaving unformulated a vision of higher education that might unify or elevate the American collective. Yet, the texts suggest a pedagogical possibility that life writing might serve as a via media between scholarship and popular writing that teacher-scholars might use to help our own students find in reflective education not only rupture and challenge, but also continuity and the possibility of return.