Editor’s Note, p. iv

ARTICLES

Alan Rosen

Autobiography from the Other Side: The Reading of Nazi Memoirs and Confessional Ambiguity, p. 553

While most autobiographers can expect sympathetic readings of their work, autobiography “from the other side” deals with lives, and thus narratives, characterized by a profound indecency. This essay explores author and reader strategies found in Nazi memoirs, using Rudolf Hoess’s “My Soul” as a test case. By examining the work’s confessional transparency, the memoir’s complex nature and questionable power are revealed, as the confession that we read is undermined by the confessions witnessed within the text.

Kimberly Nance

Disarming Testimony: Speakers’ Resistance to Readers’ Defenses in Latin American Testimonio, p. 570

Testimonio is part of an explicitly social and political project, to which both external censorship and internalized psychosocial constraints on the narration of trauma are identified obstacles. However, the social demands that testimonio places on its addressees also pose threats to readers, collaborating writers, and critics, who generate their own forms of cognitive and psychological protection.

REVIEWS

Venus on Wheels: Two Decades of Dialogue on Disability, Biography, and Being Female in America, by Gelya Frank, p. 589
Reviewed by Mary Grimley Mason

Autobiography and Activism: Three Black Women of the Sixties, by Margo V. Perkins, p. 591
Reviewed by Jane Davis

Beyond Nostalgia: Aging and Life-Story Writing, by Ruth E. Ray, p. 594
Reviewed by Maxine Borowsky Junge

Récits de vie et medias, by Philippe Lejeune, p. 595
Reviewed by Roland A. Champagne

Genèses du “Je”: Manuscrits et autobiographie edited by Philippe Lejeune and Catherine Viollet, p. 598
Reviewed by Roland A. Champagne

Worlds of Bronze and Bamboo: Sima Qian’s Conquest of History, by Grant Hardy, p. 600
Reviewed by Alan Berkowitz

The Biography of Ancient Israel: National Narratives in the Bible, by Ilana Pardes, p. 607
Reviewed by Susan Niditch

Classical Arabic Biography: The Heirs of the Prophets in the Age of al-Ma’mun, by Michael Cooperson, p. 609
Reviewed by Tayeb El-Hibri

St. Cuthbert: His Life and Cult in Medieval Durham, by Dominic Marner, p. 613
Reviewed by Edward Peters

“A Mirror for Magistrates” and the “de casibus” Tradition, by Paul Budra, p. 616
Reviewed by Elizabeth McCutcheon

Of Self and Nation: Autobiography and the Representation of Modern Indonesia, by C. W. Watson, p. 620
Reviewed by Susan Rodgers

Selfish Gifts: Senegalese Women’s Autobiographical Discourses, by Lisa McNee, p. 625
Reviewed by Claudia Hoffer Gosselin

Women’s Spiritual Autobiography in Colonial Spanish America, by Kristine Ibsen, p. 634
Reviewed by Ronald J. Morgan

The Intimate Empire: Reading Women’s Autobiography, by Gillian Whitlock, p. 639
Reviewed by Stephan Meyer

The Portraits of Madame Pompadour: Celebrating the Femme Savante, by Elise Goodman, p. 644
Reviewed by Larry W. Riggs

Poignant Relations: Three Modern French Women, by James Smith Allen, p. 649
Reviewed by Helynne Hollstein Hansen

Biographical Passages: Essays on Victorian and Modernist Biography, edited by Joe Law and Linda K. Hughes, p. 653
Reviewed by Deborah Martinson

Peter Ackroyd: The Ludic and Labyrinthine Text, by Jeremy Gibson and Julian Wolfreys, p. 656
Reviewed by Joseph H. O’Mealy

Providence Tales and the Birth of American Literature by James D. Hartman, p. 659
Reviewed by Jonathan Levin

The American Byron: Homosexuality and the Fall of Fitz-Greene Halleck, by John W. M. Hallock, p. 662
Reviewed by Charles Shively

Slippery Characters: Ethnic Impersonators and American Identities, by Laura Browder, p. 665
Reviewed by Sean Meehan

Voices of the Fugitives: Runaway Slave Stories and Their Fictions of Self-Creation, by Sterling Lecater Bland, Jr., p. 669
Reviewed by Graham Russell Hodges

Growing Up Nisei: Race, Generation, and Culture among Japanese-Americans of California, 1929-1949, by David K. Yoo, p. 670
Reviewed by Jean Toyama

What Price Fame?, by Tyler Cowen, p. 675
Reviewed by Ann Larabee

Autobiography and National Identity in the Americas, by Steven V. Hunsaker, p. 678
Reviewed by James V. Fenelon

REVIEWED ELSEWHERE, p. 681
Excerpts from recent reviews of biographies, autobiographies, and other works of interest

LIFELINES, p. 768
Upcoming events, calls for papers, and news from the field

CONTRIBUTORS, p. 774