PRISMI n°9: Memory and writings of the self: modesty, shamelessness - Elsa Chaarani-Lesourd and Laura Toppan (dir.)

Academic work

The volume corresponds to the proceedings of a conference on "Memory and writings of the self: modesty, shamelessness", which was held in November 2007 and whose purpose was to study how, across the centuries, the self masks and unmasks itself in the Letters and Arts of Italy and the Italian-speaking world. In any text in prose or verse in which the intimate is written - whether it is a memoir, correspondence, fragmentary memories, autobiography or autofiction - a writing of modesty (or shamelessness) is organized, also called, depending on the age, "self-censorship". Several participants looked at autobiographical texts of fairly classic styles such as letters, autobiographies, while others studied autobiography in poetry, in interviews or even forms of autobiography defined as "utilitarian", that is to say, instrumentalized for political or journalistic ends.

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