Parafiction (Biblio-Memoir)

How does anyone dare to write? Mostly beside
oneself, and in the investigation of these sites
of "besided-ness" lies the focus of this class. We
can speak of many para-"sites": para-phrase,
para-normal, para-legal, para-military,
para-medic, para-lysis, para-psychology,
para-phernalia, para-noia, para-dise, para-llel,
para-lax. These para-digms carry with them,
para-doxically, a sense of deviation and
displacement from any set of stable rules or genre
orthodoxies. In Parafiction, writers typically
take the liberties of a novelist or short story
writer into the obligation of biography, memoir,
essay, rhetorical criticism, even poetry. But
therein lies the rub: this multiply voiced effort
at imposed meaning, narrative order, and authorial
authority empties and exposes itself as it becomes
ethically, aesthetically, and ontologically
problematic. We cite ourselves from multiple sites
of authority as we become parasites of our own
attempts at authenticity. For Spring 2020, this
critical seminar, which will also have a
subsidiary workshop component, will concentrate on
ekphrastic hybrids where authors bring memoiristic
and auto-fictional elements to inhabit, or be
possessed by, the work ("the bibliography) of
another artist, author, or filmmaker.