![]() I argue that in encountering the written autobiography we should not disavow this haunting but rather acknowledge its importance as a means of encountering that life. ![]() ![]() This impossibility is most poignant in Blood Memory as Graham struggles to represent the autobiographical significance of the embodied performance yet is haunted by the inability to fully articulate in writing its significance for her. I suggest that while the written account is an important means to chart a life, there are forms of autobiography that remain unrepresentable in the frame of writing. Following a deconstructive perspective (Buse and Stott 1999 Derrida 1994) and taking up feminist critiques of both autobiography (Benstock 1988 Chanfrault-Duchet 2000) and the effects of embodiment (Phelan 1997 Albright 1997), I theorize autobiography as a haunting interstice between writing and the body. ![]() In this article I employ modern dance pioneer Martha Graham's memoir Blood Memory (1991) to complicate understandings of autobiography. ![]()
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