A Conversation with Anna Poletti

Abstract

Anna Poletti is Associate Professor of English Literature and Culture at Utrecht University and recently published their monograph, Stories of the Self: Life Writing after the Book. As a scholar of autobiography, they consider forms of “self-life-inscription” (Poletti 8) outside of the book, and the importance of considering the materiality and transmediality of such autobiographical practices. Stories of the Self positions itself between life, matter and media in thinking about the stories we tell. Anna moves from Andy Warhol’s Time Capsules to cameras and dossiers to consider transmedial forms of life writing. In this interview, our editors-in-chief Kelly van der Meulen and Kees Müller talk to Anna Poletti about their new book and go into depth about the changing role of the material book, about those who are not able to share their own lived experience, and the future of autobiography studies. Their conversation starts with a close examination of the title of Anna’s monograph.