Amy Carlson, Reading Mediated Life Narratives: Auto/Biographical Agency in the Book, Museum, Social Media, and Archives

In Reading Mediated Life Narratives: Auto/Biographical Agency in the Book, Museum, Social Media, and Archives, Amy Carlson, leveraging her background as a librarian, delves into the nuanced mediations influencing life narratives, with keen awareness of (im)materiality, (re)formatting, text versions, and the reading experience. Expanding upon Anna Poletti’s insights, Carlson highlights the critical importance of both materiality and mediation in the analysis of (self-)life inscriptions. She emphasizes embodiment as a pivotal concern in life writing scholarship, stressing the significance of understanding auto/biographical texts as objects. By delving into Sarah Kember and Joanna Zylinska’s concept of ‘original technicity’ (2012), which asserts that humans have always relied on external technologies to navigate life, Carlson articulates how human experiences are inherently mediated.