Life Story Links: June 20, 2023
“I believe that any experience, whatever its nature, has the inalienable right to be chronicled. There is no such thing as a lesser truth.”
—Annie Ernaux
Vintage poster produced by the Work Projects Administration in 1937 with artwork by Jack Rivolta; image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Digital Collection. The posters were designed to publicize exhibits, community activities, theatrical productions, and health and educational programs in seventeen states and the District of Columbia between 1936 to 1943.
Our stories, our selves?
REMEMBERING—AND FORGETTING—THE HIJACKING
“My father told me often that he hoped to live long enough to read my memoir,” Martha Hodes explains before detailing why, in fact, she didn’t want him to read it.
PHILOSOPHIZING THE STORIES OF US
“What is the connection between the development of a sense of the self and a narrative of the self? How does the question of who you are or who I am become a question of storytelling? Is the self a story?”
INTERGENERATIONAL TRAUMA
Rachel Zimmerman investigates new research into how “the environmental wounds inflicted on one generation may be transmitted to the next” in experiences as diverse as childhood abuse, the Holocaust, and slavery.
Papers of the past
THE ART OF LETTER WRITING
“You may find your handwritten words on a piece of paper ordinary today, but that same piece of paper, three or four generations later, will become an emotional property,” Narendra Modi, prime minister of India, recently said.
JOURNALS: TO SAVE OR NOT TO SAVE?
I’ve often fallen off the journal-writing bandwagon because I get mired in thoughts about who will read my (vulnerable, extemporaneous) words when I am gone. Last week I deliberated the pros and cons of saving one’s diaries.
CELEBRATING GRANDMOTHERS
Cuban American women are sharing their abuelas’ cooking and life lessons in the digital sphere, helping these grandmothers fulfill the role of “keeper of the family legend.”
Pop annals
PHOTO STORY
“An excerpt from the new book White House by the Sea: A Century of the Kennedys at Hyannis Port offers a rare glimpse into Jackie Kennedy’s early years on Cape Cod.”
1964 TIME CAPSULE
When an archivist unearthed a stash of photos taken by Paul McCartney at the height of Beatlemania, he got to revisit memories blurred by the whirlwind of the time. Now, those photos and McCartney’s reflections are in a book:
HOW TO INTERVIEW MUSICIANS
“Designate a small number of must-ask questions—the quotes you have to get for your story—and promise yourself you’ll ask them at some point. With that established, treat your interview like a conversation.”
...and a few more links
Short takes