Free Onsite Community Seminar Series

Modern Heroine Autobiographies
Tuesday, February 25, 2025

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The genre of autobiography necessarily invokes difficulties of subjectivity, omission, and distortion. At the same time, what one chooses to write about oneself can also be highly illuminating. Nowhere will this tension, and treasure, better reveal itself than in the autobiography of the modern heroine. In addition to the fruitful knowledge any reader would gain from a male writer of historic note, the modern heroine is also a witness, and an inspiration, of the dramatic evolution of technology, equality, and gender politics of the 20th century. We invite you to join this onsite series, reading autobiographies about one month apart.

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February 25 Reading:

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, Chapters 11-24 (pages 70-193)

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Readings in the Series:

The Story of my Life by Helen Keller

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

Art and Writing of Georgia O’Keeffe

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou – ISBN 978-0345514400

Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir – ISBN 978-0060825195

The Fun of It by Amelia Earhart – ISBN 978-0915864553

The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt – ISBN 978-0062355911

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Schedule:

12:00-1:30PM PST

Tutor:

Andy Gilman

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Location:

The Ojai Library

111 East Ojai Avenue

Ojai, California 93023