Intimacy and Memory in the Writings of the Self

Abstract

The article presents a brief summary of the main points in the research project “Intimacy and memory in the writings of the self.” The project uses a significant corpus of texts from contemporary European literature. The analysis focuses on discourse of intimacy that, as an imaginary experience, founds a language effect that subjectifies writing through individual memory. The study of these texts allows us to observe how the "writings of the self" promote discourses of intimacy that, as affective figurations of an individual memory and personal identity, constitute a form of effective access to the understanding and comprehension not only of one's own individuality but also of the collective, favoring, in this way, possibilities to access a new historical consciousness. This project is part of a theoretical approach that has been at work in literary criticism for several decades. The so-called "return of the author" (Barthes, 1987; Blanchot 1992- 1977; Deleuze, 1996; Foucault1999; Agamben, 2005), has, among its most relevant methodological consequences, renewed interest in autobiographical writings, and in the representations and figurations of the private and intimate.