Browsing by Subject "Memoir"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4

Open Access
A Journey Chronicling Memories of Grief and Loss
(2018-04-18) Shanahan, Maryanne
Abstract Storytelling is a natural and necessary human behavior. Stories connect us to our past, our present, and, most importantly, to each other. They tease our imaginations and stir our emotions. Certain stories are gifts to those who listen. Such is the case with those gifted to me on this journey exploring the grief and loss of motherless daughters. Inspired by a photograph of my grandmother, the story of her death after childbirth, and my own mother’s lifetime sadness over having lost her mother when she was very young, I conducted audio interviews with women in similar situations. I interviewed women, like myself, whose mothers lost their mothers. I also interviewed women who themselves were left motherless at a young age. In this paper, these separate stories are connected within the overarching story of my personal journey to find, listen to, and document them. I also include my own reflections on grief and loss in the context of the story of my mother and grandmother. Within the stories, I have interspersed treasured photographs and written memorabilia. I conclude the paper with a description and analysis of my process: the preparatory research, the training in audio interviewing and documentary, my approach to the interview process (including the failures, successes, and surprises along the way), and my conclusions about what I learned and accomplished as I pursued and completed the project.  A twenty-minute audio documentary titled Conversations: Mothers and Mother Loss accompanies this written work. In the documentary, culled from sixteen hours of audio interviews, the nine women who lost their mothers at early ages or whose mothers lost their mothers at early ages grant us intimate connection with their stories through their voices.
Open Access
Against the Grain: Reclaiming the Life I Left Behind
(2015-06-12) Brill, Margaret
* Designated as an Exemplary Master's Project for 2014-15*
Against the Grain revisits a period of my life long neglected: the 20 years between my graduation from London University with a BA in African history in 1964 and my professional reinvention as an academic librarian. In keeping with second wave feminism's emphasis on professional life, I had dismissed this period of my life as subservient to "patriarchy": I was the dependent wife of a Foreign Service officer. At this point in my personal and professional history I have come to recognize this was anything but a prelude to a more real existence. With the benefit of historically informed insights, I recognize that I lived for extended periods in hotspots throughout Africa and beyond in the nineteen sixties and seventies, at moments of world historical significance: Ghana, Burundi, South Africa, Bulgaria, and Zaire. Moreover, because of my relative independence I was able to develop relationships that continue to shape my understanding of this complex period in US foreign policy. In classic feminist fashion, the personal and the political were inextricable. Somewhat more against the feminist grain are the rich experiences and examined life of an adventurous, independent woman in a traditional marriage. I eventually regained my independence; when I remarried and moved to North Carolina in 1984, I put those years behind me. Viewing that part of my life in historical context has revealed that, even without a career, I led a full and rich life that has helped to shape my identity today.
Open Access
Shattered Moments: The Fall From My 30-Foot Pedestal
(2015-05-19) Sroufe, Brooke
Part One of my final project consists of a series of creative non-fiction stories detailing a traumatic accident I experienced in 2009. The stories examine my physical recovery and reflect on my emotional recovery process. I have also written stories about my strongest memories from my childhood as a way to uncover the events that helped shape the 20-year-old girl I was at the time of my accident. The stories are not linear, but span from my childhood to the three years following my accident. Through these stories, I hope to contribute to greater conversations about trauma, emerging adulthood, and identity—particularly among young people. Part Two of the project analyzes the question of trauma and the necessity of narrative following trauma. I break this section of the project into three short essays addressing different aspects of trauma and narrative: a history of trauma, the need for memoir, and posttraumatic growth. I reference three larger works for these essays and relate the arguments and theories the authors make to my own traumatic experience and the process of writing my own stories. In addition to these written parts of my final project, I also include personal photographs throughout the project. These pictures, like my stories, are not linear. They are visual pieces of my shattered life puzzle, showing meme before and after my fall from the 30-foot pedestal I’d created for myself. By connecting these pieces, I was able to find new meaning in my experience, allowing me to move forward in the recovery of my body and mind.
Open Access
The City Has Changed Them: Storytelling, Memory, and the Family Photo Album
(2015-04-29) Woods Tucker, Erica
The City has Changed Them: Storytelling, Memory, and the Family Photo Album is an interdisciplinary work that consists of five parts. Four of the parts have an analytical component as well as a personal story to accompany them. Along with the writings there are also seventeen images from one of my family’s photo albums. The purpose of the project is to locate a family through memoir and photos, and trace them through the American phenomenon known as the Great Migration. I used my maternal grandmother, Malqueen Goldsmith, and my father, James Woods, as anchors to the memoir pieces. I outline their departure from the south, their subsequent relocation to New York City, their search for work, interactions within their own communities and the larger social context in which they lived and raised a family from the mid-1940s to roughly 1975. The purpose of the project is for the researcher to view the African American family photo album as a serious historical object. I believe it to be an historical artifact as well as a visual record that warrants the same serious study as traditional historical objects.