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“Reclaiming the Narrative Pedagogy”

(from Midnight at the Arcanum: a monograph, pp. 11-14)

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Meta-autobiographical fiction is an intricate literary genre in the rich tradition and practice of metafiction wherein the author deliberately integrates personal autobiographical experiences into a fictional narrative, creating a reflective, and ofttimes intentionally blurred literary exploration of identity. This raises questions about the boundaries between the actual and the imagined, by intentionally analyzing the act of storytelling itself, with the author’s experiences becoming central themes within the work. The distinction between meta-autobiographical fiction and pure autobiography can be explored as an example of how language and narrative inform our collective understanding and not just as the bared details of particular life timelines. We might argue that all texts are inherently unstable and that there is no single objective truth that can be derived from them. Instead, meaning is constructed through a process of interpretation that is shaped by social and cultural contexts.

The notion that “we henceforth agree that this is truth” can be seen as a stark expression of a certain kind of negotiated essentialist thinking, in which our individual identities and subjective experiences are seen as fixed and self-contained within closed systems. However, this kind of thinking can be seen as a product of the hegemonic social and cultural contexts in which it emerges, and it obscures the ways in which individual experiences are shaped through contingency by larger social forces. That we are bound to a hegemony is evident in the fact that we do not fully declare I am without first considering who that even is when held in unrelenting juxtaposition to the dominant hierarchy.

As its name suggests, meta-autobiography places the author in a position of true self-agency above the singular isolated self and sets the you are of the contract into the second-person domain of the reader, thus making stating “we know to be true” an act of broader collaborative liberation, since it is only by communicating our authentic personal truth to another that anything even beginning to resemble a dialogue forms. Readers in Western cultures have participated in such dialogues and self-reflective and subversive accounts at least since Plato’s “Apology,” [1] circa 399 BCE:

Perhaps someone might say, “Socrates, can you not go away from us and live quietly, without talking?” Now this is the hardest thing to make some of you believe. For if I say that such conduct would be disobedience to [Apollo] and therefore I cannot keep quiet, you will think I am jesting and will not believe me; and if again I say that to talk every day about virtue and the other things about which you hear me talking and examining myself and others is the greatest good to man, and that the unexamined life is not worth living, you will believe me still less.—“Apology” (37e-38a)

When we apply deconstructionist thinking to the distinction between meta and pure autobiographical fiction, we see that, rather than being dichotomous, both genres are shaped by larger discourses. While pure autobiography may appear to be a more objective (and thus essentialist) form of self-examination, seen through a poststructuralist lens, it is still directed and shaped by higher hegemony-informed narratives about and expectations informing what constitutes a “good” life and what experiences are seen as of great enough “importance” or “interest” or “merit” to be “worthy” enough for sharing with a readership. Meta-autobiography, however, originates from a somehow-liberated autonomous self and need not request permission from the Gatekeepers-of-Art, as it is Self-Affirming, the final byproduct of the well examined life put forth in narrative to a readership.

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Meta-autobiographical fiction explicitly acknowledges the constructed nature of individual experience and uses narrative strategies to disrupt the dogmatic idea of a monolithic objective truth. By incorporating fictional elements, authors can highlight the ways in which individual experiences are shaped by larger social forces and open up new possibilities for interpretation and meaning-making. In this way, the distinction between pure and meta-autobiographical fiction can be seen as an example of how deconstructionist thinking can help us to socialize and make more accessible individual experiences and to understand them more fully as products of our larger shared exogenous systemic contexts.

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Instead of viewing individual experiences as self-contained and fixed, we can recognize them as contingent parts of larger narratives and thus engage in a more open and inclusive process overall, thereby reclaiming agency to our own stories. Meta-autobiographical fiction can thus be seen as an avenue toward a pedagogy of the oppressed, in that it can empower individuals to reclaim their own identity. In this sense, the genre can be seen as an accessible and productive tool for resistance and subversive reinterpretation.

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The groundbreaking concept of a pedagogy of the oppressed was first proposed by Brazilian educator Paulo Freire,[2] who argued that traditional education systems often reinforce existing power structures and perpetuate inequality. According to Freire, this pedagogy should be focused on empowering marginalized individuals to become active critical thinkers who can challenge cultural expectations and work towards societal equity, in large part by engaging in constructive and deconstructive dialogue both with the oppressors and with others who have yet to learn the language of liberation from their current entrapment. The six principles of this pedagogy are, at heart: critical consciousness, dialogic problem-posing education, liberation from oppression, contextualized learning, praxis, and emancipatory education.

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As a literary genre, meta-autobiographical fiction promotes expanded critical consciousness by encouraging individuals to reflect on the constructed nature of their own lived experiences. It prompts self-awareness and an understanding of how larger social forces shape and perturb their personal stories. Just as knowledge is not passively bank-deposited into the students’ minds but rather the students all become active participants and co-creators of knowledge, the meta-autobiographical author is an active participant in the interpretation of the events of his or her own life, entering into a discussion with the participant reader, rather than depositing static historical anecdotes and facts of space and time into some imagined memory bank of human knowledge and homogenized posterity.

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Moreover, such oeuvres foster Socratic dialogic problem-posing education by inviting readers and authors to engage in conversations about the complexities of personal stories and the many perspectives one must fully consider as one interprets one’s life events. It encourages the active questioning of the dominant cultural ethos and invites readers to become active participants in their own meaning-making process. Next, it can empower individuals to find or reclaim their authentic truth and voice, allowing the previously marginalized to be heard clearly. Through its self-representation, meta-autobiography becomes a platform for empowerment and constructive resistance.

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This literary form embodies the integration of theory and practice, encouraging individuals to not only reflect on their own experiences but also to act upon their newfound awareness. By using story-telling strategies to disrupt traditional structures and challenge the entrenched power dynamics, meta-autobiography becomes an avenue to fuller transformative praxis. Finally, meta-autobiography effectively aligns with emancipatory education as it empowers individuals to tell their own stories on their terms and according to their own lived experience.

Through the process of writing and sharing their stories, individuals can gain a sense of agency and empowerment that may have been denied to them in other contexts. They can also contribute to a broader process of collective meaning-making and thus open up new possibilities for understanding the world, thereby more actively contributing to a broader project of social equity and liberation.

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[1] Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 1, trans. Harold North Fowler; Introduction by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd., 1966.

[2] Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Seabury Press, New York, 1970.

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