Live Writing in Times of Crisis

The Autobiographical Triangle – and Then What?

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21827/ejlw.14.42227

Keywords:

autobiographical triangle, autobiographical place, co-humanism

Abstract

The essay outlines the key concepts of the universal theory of the autobiography, which I define as a “triangular” form of utterance involving three different stances: witness, confession, challenge. Witness refers to personal testimony to experiences lived through, confession to the presentation of intimate inner experience and challenge to the provocation of the reader to engage in dialogue, enter into an argument or join in a game. The three stances are always present, though usually one of them overshadows the other two. I present the prospects for the development of a variety of inspirations derived from this theory: 1) awareness not only of the existence but also of the growing significance of the stance of challenge; 2) destabilization of autobiographical place as a reference context for witness; 3) singling out of female autobiographical material and research on this topic; 4) the crisis in research on life writing in the context of the posthuman paradigm. My conclusion is a new proposal in the context of ecocriticism and animal studies: cohumanism instead of posthumanism.

Author Biography

Małgorzata Czermińska, University of Gdańsk

Małgorzata Czermińska, graduate of Warsaw University, is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Gdańsk, Poland and specialises of life writing, theory an history of autobiography, geopoetics and links between literature and visual art. She has lectured in Polish literature at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor  (USA) and Cambridge University (UK).

Published

2025-07-10

Issue

Vol. 14 (2025): EJLW

Section

Live Writing in Times of Crisis

Copyright (c) 2025 Małgorzata Czermińska

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