Constructing Identity in Political Memoirs

This article explores the links between the processes of identity construction and attributes of political memoirs as a particular type of text embracing a set of inherent characteristics that are derived from political discourse on the one hand, and memoiristic literature on the other. The research is based on the contextual and linguistic analyses and discourse analysis of such American autobiographical memoirs as An American Life by R. Reagan, My Life by B. Clinton, Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope by B. Obama. The results of the study are summarized as follows. First, we prove that it is necessary that political memoirs be classified as a subgenre of memoiristic literature in terms of literature studies or a type of text in terms of text linguistics. Second, we pinpoint that political memoiristic writing produces particular versions of identity, framed by social context and relations of a private personality. Third, the friend and foe agonistic pattern of politics is outlined as determinative of the physical author’s self-perception and identification in political memoirs

Aesthetics · Art · Epistemology · Linguistics · Memoir · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Discourse Analysis in Language Studies · Gender Studies · History · Law · Philosophy

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  Andrew Huddleston•The British Journal of Aesthetics•2012

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