Vanishing Point
Joan Didion and the Horizons of Historical Knowledge
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6187538 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Kenneth Millard (University of Edinburgh, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 10 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Publication date | 2015-08-14 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | European Journal of American Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1991-9336 • E-ISSN: 1991-9336 |
| Publisher | OpenEdition (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.4000/ejas.11086 |
| OpenAlex | W1128840244 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 25 |
This critical study situates Joan Didion’s memoir Where I Was From in the context of debates about the textuality of history in contemporary culture. In particular the essay is a critical examination of Didion’s interest in the concept of origins. What are the politics of historical origins, how might “true origins” be known, and how might a different understanding of such origins facilitate a feminist appraisal of Western American history? The essay argues that Didion’s book is an innovative contribution to the genre of the memoir, and to the social history of California and the American West
Archaeology · Art · Art history · Context (archaeology · Literature · Memoir · Political science · Politics · Textuality · History · Law · Oral History, Memory, Narrative Analysis
The Past is a Foreign Country
Pre-capitalist modes of production
Doing Time
The American Adam
Manifest destiny
Metahistory
Of Grammatology
On Longing
Metahistory
History and memory
The Sexual Politics of Time
The Gender of Modernity
Unclaimed Experience
The Resistance to Theory
Notes for an Anatomy of Modern Autobiography
Nostalgia for the Present
Landscapes of the New West
Theories of Myth
| Highly cited | No |
|---|