• Students |
• Faculty/Staff |
• Alumni |
• News |
• Departments |
• Directory

College of Humanities People

Julia Watson, Associate Dean & Professor

Edit Julia Watson

Teaching and Research: life narrative and theorizing autobiography. My books with Sidonie Smith include Reading Autobiography: A Guide to Interpreting Life Narratives (revised edition, Univ. of Minnesota Press, July 2010) and five co-edited collections (see below). A selection of my essays is also listed below. My current projects include a collaborative book on autobiographical hoaxes, an essay on canons in Fun Home (Life Writing, 2012), and an essay on autobiography and genealogy. Other research and teaching interests include feminist theory and women's writing, postcolonial writing, and  automediality.

Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives. Co-written with Sidonie Smith. University of Minnesota Press, 2001; revised edition 2010.  Translation into Arabic, 2011.           

Before They Could Vote: American Women's Autobiographical Writing, 1819-1919. Co-edited with Sidonie Smith. Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 2006.

Interfaces: Women, Autobiography, Image, Performance. Co-edited with Sidonie Smith. University of Michigan Press, 2002.

Women, Autobiography, Theory: A Reader. Co-edited with Sidonie Smith. University of Wisconsin Press, 1998.

Getting a Life: Everyday Uses of Autobiography. Co-edited with Sidonie Smith. University of Minnesota Press, 1996.

De/Colonizing the Subject: The Politics of Gender in Women’s Autobiography. Co-edited with Sidonie Smith. University of Minnesota Press, 1992.

"New Genres, New Subjects: Women, Gender, and Autobiography after 2000." With Sidonie Smith. Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses, Special Issue on Life Writing and Gender: Construction, Frames, and Prospects, 58 (April 2009), 13-40.

"'As Gay and as Indian as They Chose': Collaboration as Counter-Ethnography in In the Land of the Grasshopper Song." [cluster on autoethnography, ed. Kathleen McHugh and Catherine Komisaruk]. biography 31:3 [Summer 2008], 397-428.

"Autographic Disclosures and Genealogies of Desire in Alison Bechdel's Fun Home." [cluster on graphic memoir, ed. Gillian Whitlock] biography 31:1 (Winter 2008), 27-56.  Reprinted in Graphic Subjects, ed. Michael A. Chaney, University of Wisconsin Press, forthcoming 2010.

“The Spaces of Autobiographical Narrative.” In Räume des Selbst. Selbstzeugnisforschung transkulturell. (Selbstzeugnisse der Neuzeit 19), ed. Andreas Bähr/Peter Burschel/Gabriele Jancke. Köln/Weimar/Wien: Böhlau 2007, 13-25.

“Say It Isn’t So: Autobiographical Hoaxes and the Ethics of Life Narrative.” With Sidonie Smith. In Life Writing: Autobiography, Biography, and Travel Writing in Contemporary Literature. Conference Proceedings, ed. Koray Melikoglu. Stuttgart: Ibidem Verlag, 2007, 15-34.

“‘When Women Pursue Justice’: Connecting for Change.” When Women Pursue Justice (community mural exhibition catalog funded by NY Council for the Humanities). NY: Artmakers Inc., 2006 (7-15).

“The Trouble with Autobiography: Cautionary Notes for Narrative Theorists.” With Sidonie Smith. In A Companion to Narrative Theory, ed. James Phelan and Peter Rabinowitz. New York and London: Blackwell, 2005.

“Bringing Mary MacLane Back Home: Western Autobiographical Writing and the Anxiety of Place.” In Western Subjects: Autobiography in the North American West. Ed. Kathleen Boardman and Gioia Woods. University of Utah Press, 2004, 216-46.

“Charlotte Salomon’s Memory Work in the “Postscript” to Life or Theatre?” (introduction and translation). Signs: Special issue on gender and memory, 28:1 (autumn 2002). 409-29.

"The Rumpled Bed of Autobiography: Extravagant Lives, Extravagant Questions." With Sidonie Smith. biography, 24:1 (Winter 2001), 1-14.

Related Experience
International Teaching and Research