Life writing can function as an important avenue into the study of dependencies. While the slave narrative was a popular genre in the eighteenth and nineteenth century Atlantic world and has undergone intense scholarly scrutiny, forms of life writing produced in other historical, cultural, and geographical contexts of asymmetrical dependency have received much less attention. The Working Group wants to examine socio-political and economic contexts and challenges to the production of life writing, its respective cultural peculiarities, its potential transcultural patterns and modes of circulation, and the literary and aesthetic conventions informing life writing.

We also want to reflect on the methodological and epistemological challenges we encounter in the study of life writing produced in the context of dependency and slavery: Not only were people living in social relations of asymmetrical dependency often prevented from learning how to read and write, but archives of slavery and dependency usually privilege records of enslavers and those in power.

Sessions will introduce field-defining theories of life writing and individual projects by Cluster members, aiming at combining theory with primary material. We meet on a monthly basis to exchange ideas about different interdisciplinary approaches and to examine the use and applicability of life writing theories and methods to our research. Readings will be uploaded to the corresponding Sciebo folder before meetings. Each session focuses on a specific case study in combination with potential methodological approaches and is organized by one or several of the Working Group members. Everyone can make suggestions for future sessions at any point. 

The spectrum of our working group is not limited to the Maya and not only to the Classic period, but also requires the observation of neighboring cultures (e.g. Teotihuacan and the Aztec in Central Mexico) and other epochs (e.g. Postclassic and colonial) in order to work out spatial and temporal connections and to use them as references for comparison.