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I consider the following question: given my commitment to creating an inclusive classroom environment where students of all backgrounds and skill levels can feel comfortable taking emotional and intellectual risks, how do I responsibly teach a course on American Life Writing in which students both read and write narratives of trauma, many of which stem from gender-based violence? With the rise of the #MeToo movement, especially, many survivors of this kind of violence feel compelled to share their stories as a way to heal themselves and to create communities of care and support. In some cases, this kind of disclosure can be restorative. But it is also important to recognize that sharing one's narrative of trauma does not always serve as a path to healing and wholeness. There is also power in choosing to tell part of one's story, sharing one's story only with a certain audience, or not disclosing one's story at all. The works that I assign in the seminar highlight these different paths to healing and model for students the ways in which a confessional model is not the only model for dealing with trauma. In this chapter, I first describe how feminist pedagogy shapes my teaching. Then I outline my approach to teaching life writing, focusing on how I teach texts that highlight trauma and how I teach the personal narrative assignment. Finally, I reflect on how these pedagogical practices might inform our larger conversations about gendered oppression, trauma, and healing.

The purpose of this case study is to document the process of building a collection of works around transgender life-writing, following the identification of a significant gap in the existing collections.

This case study describes and evaluates a collection development project undertaken at Senate House Library, University of London. After evaluating four comparable case studies, guidelines were developed for acquisitions to the collection, based on subject, conservation needs and financial expense.

Twenty items were selected for the collection, dating from 1933 to 2015, including books and magazines in multiple languages. The items acquired for the collection push back against the genre’s traditional preoccupation with transition. Writers describe their experiences as a racing driver and fighter pilot (Roberta Cowell), an NGO director (A. Revathi), a Buddhist monk (Michael Dillon), a professional tennis player and ophthalmologist (Renée Richards), and a travel writer, journalist and mountaineer (Jan Morris).

Challenges included setting the scope of the collection, and questions around the cataloguing and arrangement of materials.

Items acquired for the collection entered the library separately and were processed individually by the library’s cataloguing team as they arrived. Several issues arose during this stage of the project.

To serve the needs of library users effectively, it is necessary to analyse the imbalances in collections as a routine practice.

The case study is original in focusing on a comparably small project with larger implications for the user experience and inclusivity of a library and its collections.

Arguably, how psychohistorians treat entrepreneur life-writing interiorizes the autobiographer’s self, thereby limiting the extent to which self can be accessed by researchers. By advocating a different approach, based on socio-narratology, this paper provides insight into how entrepreneurs in both the distant and recent past construct narrative identities – the textual corollary of “storied selves” – within their autobiographies.

The object of analysis is the failed entrepreneur autobiography, straddling two sub-genres – “projective” and “confessional” – which both serve to rehabilitate the author.

Narratological analysis of Nick Leeson’s Rogue Trader autobiography reveals how the author deftly draws upon the culturally recognizable trope of the “rogue as trickster” and “rogue as critic” to contextualize his deceptive and illegal activities, before signaling his desire for rehabilitation by exiting banking and futures trading – thereby enacting the “rogue as family man”.

The application of a narratological methodology opens up new avenues for understanding the interplay between Western cultural institutions, entrepreneur selves, and autobiographical writing.

This paper shows that narratology provides a new methodological window through which management historians can view entrepreneur autobiographies.

Larry looks at me and asks, “Do you know Carolyn Ellis?” Larry, like me, is a new doctoral student at the University of Texas. He says this so sweetly, so simply in his recently rediscovered Texas drawl that I am instantly dubious.