From Memoir to Argument: the Personal & the Political
with Robert Boyers
This lecture will have to do with the uses of memoir for argumentative purposes and consider what is gained when the personal and political are permitted to blend in essays that refuse to settle for the one at the expense of the other. Examples will be provided, and lively discussion with audience members should follow.
Robert Boyers is the author of a controversial new book (Scribner, September 2019) entitled The Tyranny of Virtue: Identity, the Academy, and the Hunt for Political Heresies. He is the author of 11 books, editor of the quarterly magazine Salmagundi, and director of the NY State Summer Writers Institute. A professor at Skidmore College, he writes for such magazines as The Nation, Harpers, The New Republic, and The Chronicle of Higher Education.