"My primary concern is with the ethics of representing vulnerable subjects-persons who are liable to exposure by someone with whom they are involved in an intimate or trust-based relationship, unable to represent themselves in writing, or unable to offer meaningful consent to their representation by someone else.... Of primary importance is intimate life writing-that done within families or couples, close relationships, or quasi-professional relationships that involve trust-rather than conventional biography, which can be written by a stranger. The closer the relationship between writer and subject, the greater the vulnerability or dependency of the subject, the higher the ethical stakes, and the more urgent the need for ethical scrutiny."-from the Preface

Vulnerable Subjects explores a range of life-writing scenarios-from the "celebrity" to the "ethnographic"-and a number of life-writing genres from parental memoir to literary case studies by Oliver Sacks. G. Thomas Couser addresses complex contemporary issues; he investigates the role of disability in narratives of euthanasia and explores the implications of the Human Genome Project for life-writing practices in any age when many regard DNA as a code that "scripts" lives and shapes identity. Throughout, his book is concerned with the ethical implications of the political and economic, as well as the mimetic, aspects of life writing.

About the Author

G. Thomas Couser is Professor of English at Hofstra University and the author of Recovering Bodies: Illness, Disability, and Life Writing; Altered Egos: Authority in American Autobiography; and American Autobiography: The Prophetic Mode.

Reviews

Couser cares about all biographical subjects and the various authoring permutations that exist, but he is especially concerned with the truly vulnerable: the very young and old, illiterate, disabled, mentally impaired, institutionalized, jailed, unborn, or dead-anyone, who must relinquish rights in order to bring a biographical account into existence. The issues are manifold and no one who reads this study will ever be able to consider a formal overview of a person's life-whether biographical or autobiographical, whether authored or ghost-written, whether written or cinematic-in quite the same way.... Couser raises so many possibilities and problems, many that would never occur even to a sophisticated, knowledgeable, and caring scholar, that one is awestruck with trepidation.

* The Journal of Information Studies *

Thomas Couser's Vulnerable Subjects: Ethics and Life Writing explores the moral perils of speaking for those who either cannot speak for themselves or can give no meaningful consent to being depicted by others. The range of cases Couser entertains is remarkably broad, and many of them are fascinating.... Vulnerable Subjects is a fine read, opening up a discussion about the ethics of representing vulnerable others that is long overdue. Couser has performed a valuable service by directing our attention to this underexplored issue, and we may perhaps leave it to others to continue the work that he has here begun.

* Literature and Medicine *

When may life writing violate the privacy of its subject? This question is the theme of this interesting, accessible examination of quandaries of authorial ethics.... Highly recommended.

* Choice *

What responsibilities do 'life writers' have to others' asks the scholar Couser, an English professor at Hofstra University. He urges the embrace of key tenets of bioethics: respect for autonomy, nonmaleficence, and beneficence.

* The Chronicle of Higher Education *

Clear to me in this reading is that no matter who we are, we are all potentially vulnerable subjects.... I highly recommend this book to anyone studying ethics, life writing, or any of the chapter subjects.

* The Review of Disability Studies *



Book Information
ISBN 9780801488634
Author G. Thomas Couser
Format Paperback
Page Count 256
Imprint Cornell University Press
Publisher Cornell University Press
Weight(grams) 454g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 18mm