Iranian Journal of Sociology

Abstract Autobiography genre, in its canonical and conventional sense of the word, is a sum of acceptable and legitimate methods and trends in narrating the life story. In other words, this genre foregrounds regulated and specific forms of constituting the life story, and at the same time, excludes alternative forms of doing so. Therefore autobiography genre eventually imposes a normative compulsion on how to constitute a life story; and by doing so, it tries to distinguish the acceptable methods and forms from the unacceptable ones. These foregrounding and exclusion have important consequences and significations if we consider the fact that the conventional and canonical forms of autobiography only make some sorts of subjectivity possible, and hence limits other sorts of subjectivity at the same time. In other words, canonical forms of autobiography insist on constituting certain kinds of life experience, and therefore impose absence on the other kinds. One of the fields in which this absence may have decisive significations, is the category of gender, and more specifically, the category of women's autobiography. That's due to the fact that the canonical field of autobiography has historically excluded the women's life writing from the canon, and therefore has become a distinctive genre only because of this exclusion. In other words, one of the most decisive exclusions in the process of defining autobiography genre is certainly a genderbased exclusion. Thus, introducing women's autobiography can be seen as an act of destabilizing the conventional and canonical genre of autobiography, and at the same time, it may also lead to some alternative forms and spaces for constituting the life experience of women. In this article, by focusing on various students' autobiographies, we've tried to depict and describe these student's struggles for constituting the feminine life story and experience; a struggle which is, more than anything else, carried out by resisting, as well as departing from, the canonical forms of autobiography.

Abstract Autobiography genre, in its canonical and conventional sense of the word, is a sum of acceptable and legitimate methods and trends in narrating the life story. In other words, this genre foregrounds regulated and specific forms of constituting the life story, and at the same time, excludes alternative forms of doing so. Therefore autobiography genre eventually imposes a normative compulsion on how to constitute a life story; and by doing so, it tries to distinguish the acceptable methods and forms from the unacceptable ones. These foregrounding and exclusion have important consequences and significations if we consider the fact that the conventional and canonical forms of autobiography only make some sorts of subjectivity possible, and hence limits other sorts of subjectivity at the same time. In other words, canonical forms of autobiography insist on constituting certain kinds of life experience, and therefore impose absence on the other kinds. One of the fields in which this absence may have decisive significations, is the category of gender, and more specifically, the category of women's autobiography. That's due to the fact that the canonical field of autobiography has historically excluded the women's life writing from the canon, and therefore has become a distinctive genre only because of this exclusion. In other words, one of the most decisive exclusions in the process of defining autobiography genre is certainly a gender-based exclusion. Thus, introducing women's autobiography can be seen as an act of destabilizing the conventional and canonical genre of autobiography, and at the same time, it may also lead to some alternative forms and spaces for constituting the life experience of women. In this article, by focusing on various students' autobiographies, we've tried to depict and describe these student's struggles for constituting the feminine life story and experience; a struggle which is, more than anything else, carried out by resisting, as well as departing from, the canonical forms of autobiography.