Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Other critical essays we read as we studied these topics included Kowalewski; Foote; Straight; Stegner; Silko; and “A Panel.”
2. Introductory chapters of the following texts helped my classes make interdisciplinary connections between feminist geography and life writing: McDowell; Massey; Moss and Falconer Al Hindi; and Friedman. In addition, Comer and Reaves both connected geography specifically with literary study. A section on Space in Smith and Watson (Citation42–49) was also helpful.
3. Thank you to Hank Davis, Holly Kruitbosch, Rob Lugg, Greg Mulder, Lee Olsen, and Sara Seelmeyer for permission to quote and paraphrase from their online responses and in-class assignments and discussion notes.
4. These are questions from the small-group task that elicited some of the student comments above: Citation(1) Let's assume we agree that place is important to memoir and to identity, at least in this text. Then what should we know about place—about the particular geographical, social, political, cultural context—when reading and interpreting Blunt's Breaking Clean? Does she provide all the information we need to read this book well? Citation(2) Several of our critics refer to “mapping.” What aspects of place (and space) can or should be mapped onto this text? Or how might Breaking Clean be mapped onto what we know of western place and space? And what issues emerge for us once we have done this mapping? Citation(3) What are the consequences of referring to Blunt as a regional—or regionalist—writer? A western writer? A western woman writer? A feminist memoirist?