Mary Karr and ’The Art of Memoir’

This lecture is on Mary Karr and her book The Art of Memoir. We considered questions such as whether you remember your childhood better than your adult years; if so, why? Can you recall a memory having changed during your lifetime? Mary Karr says that often we remember things one way but later realize they didn't actually happen that way. Memory can be a political thing in a family too, with people taking sides about what "really" happened. In the lecture I discuss connections between fiction and memoir, how telling ourselves stories has to do with our ideas of happiness, how stories of our lives can be shaped by the our chosen purposes, and how fiction and memoir are distinctive because they can show “the human” in us--and make us want to understand a stranger's politics. [30 mins]. 

This lecture was made possible by East and West Learning Connections: http://www.eawlc.org. It was given live on zoom on April 13, 2022.