Serial Memoir This page intentionally left blank Serial Memoir Archiving American lives Nicole Stamant Agnes Scott College, Decatur, Georgia, USA © Nicole Stamant 2014 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-1-137-41032-0 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2014 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-48893-3 ISBN 978-1-137-41033-7 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9781137410337 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Typeset by MPS Limited, Chennai, India. To my family This page intentionally left blank Contents Acknowledgments vi 1 Introduction: Archiving American Lives in Serial Memoir 1 2 Mary McCarthy’s Archival Performance as a “Perfect Execution of the Idea”: Reading Recursivity and Revision, Seriality and Supplementarity 28 3 Alternate Archives: Maya Angelou’s The Complete Autobiographies or the Seriality of a Life Mosaic 53 4 “Too Meta to Live”: The Materiality of Seriality from Art Spiegelman’s “Maus” to Meta Maus 85 5 Augusten Burroughs and Serial Culture 118 6 Conclusion: “Veneration of the Trace”: Archiving American Lives into the Twenty-First Century 148 Notes 159 Bibliography 182 Index 195 vii Acknowledgments This project had a great deal of support, and there are many people and institutions to whom I would like to express my gratitude. What began as a dissertation project at Texas A&M University transformed over the years into this monograph. Without Texas A&M’s intellectual communities from 2002 to 2009, I certainly would not be the scholar, teacher, or thinker that I am. I am grateful for Texas A&M’s reading and working groups for the ways in which they helped me see connections between seemingly disparate texts. For their commitment to graduate students, and for their continual faith in my work, I thank my dis- sertation committee, including Susan Stabile, Sally Robinson, Pamela R. Matthews, and Linda Radzik; they nurtured my writing, teaching, and thinking from its earliest stages. Of Susan, I am especially apprecia- tive of the years of friendship, provocative discussions, and unending encouragement. It was in her courses that I came to life writing studies, and in which I began to develop the ideas presented in Serial Memoir. To have taught together, traveled together, and worked together is a unique delight and privilege. In addition to the English Department and its Graduate Studies Program, I thank the Glasscock Center for Humanities Research, and the Women’s Studies Program at Texas A&M, both of which provided me during my time there with support, includ- ing fellowships and travel grants. I am also thankful for the librarians at the Vassar College Special Collections and Archives Library, and Dean Rogers in particular, for assistance with my research. For the last few years, I have had the privilege of working with amaz- ing colleagues at Agnes Scott College, and their generous support for this project has galvanized my continued attention to it. My thanks go especially to Charlotte and Brian Artese, Christine Cozzens, Amber Dermont, Jim Diedrick, Steve Guthrie, Waqas Khwaja, Esther Lee, Peggy Thompson, Willie Tolliver, Rachel Trousdale, and Jim Wiseman for their encouragement, mentorship, and friendship. Thanks, too, to the mem- bers of the Last Fridays Working Group, including Yael Manes, Robin Morris, and Martha Rees for their attention to pieces of this project, and to my bright, funny, insightful students. I am consistently amazed and impressed by their intelligence and bravery. In particular, I acknowledge the role my family has played in the creation and development of this project, and of my scholarship. viii Acknowledgments ix Without their unwavering confidence and love, these years of writing and thinking about seriality would not have been possible. I thank Michelle Auwae-Lapilio, and Liz, Jack, and Grant West, for their distrac- tions and their confidence in me; they encourage me in the ways that matter the most. Thanks to my parents, Bruce Carder, Janet Wolery, Bill West, and Patricia McDaniel, who have given me unconditional support throughout my academic career—both as a student, when my thinking about this project began, and now as a faculty member— and to my grandfathers, Horace McDaniel and Walt Wolery, who continue to give me confidence in my work. I am also grateful for the support and encouragement of my in-laws: Jack Stamant, Jackie and Charles Longino, Loyce Longino, Bob and Jeanne Stamant, Betty and Fred Harkins, and Sister Mary Gallagher, and of my niece and nephews, Chase, Brynn, and Jack Longino. My deepest appreciation goes to the person who has lived and breathed this project with me for so many years: my husband, James Stamant. It is with keen insight, quick wit, generous conversation, and unfailing passion that I keep going, for which I am especially grateful now that Henry Emile has joined us. Without him, both this book and I would be much less.