Writing a Life from the Margins
Montreal Canada
Organization: Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English (ACCUTE)
In Memoir: An Introduction, Thomas Couser observes that the recent memoir boom has also
given rise to the “some body” memoir, allowing marginalized voices to enter mainstream
discourse. These accounts, he notes, often possess a performative dimension, one that enacts
the clear message: “I’m here, and I can speak for myself.” As such, life narratives by women,
racial minorities, LGBTQ writers, and individuals living with disabilities or illness extend beyond
the detailing of events; they undertake the critical work of interrogating social and cultural
concerns.
This panel invites scholars to consider the ways in which life narratives from marginalized
communities negotiate questions of belonging, representation, and collective identity.
Researchers are encouraged to investigate how writing about oppression, silencing, or illness
from a personal perspective can challenge dominant cultural narratives while also modelling
new forms of civic and cultural participation.
Questions of interest may include, but are not limited to:
• What are the aesthetics, ethics, and politics involved in inscribing lives lived at the margins?
• In what ways can memoir function as a practice of “citizenship” or collective identity
formation (see Julie Rak’s Boom! )?
• How do illness narratives and disability life writing operate as counter-narratives?
• How do intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and class shape contemporary memoir?
• What is the relationship between private testimony and public discourse in life writing?
• How can theoretical approaches help us understand self-representation and collective
representation?
• How do memoir and other life-writing genres (e.g., autofiction, autobiography, graphic
memoir) compare, overlap, or diverge?
Please send your proposal to Titi Aiyegbusi titi.aiyegbusi@mail.utoronto.ca
https://accute.ca/2026-call-for-papers/
titi.aiyegbusi@mail.utoronto.ca
Titi Aiyegbusi