Selected Books and E-Books
The Digital Banal: New Media and American Literature and Culture by
Dinnen (Queen Mary University of London) tackles the social aspects of digital media and technology in literature. Winner of The British Association for Contemporary Literary Studies (BACLS) Monograph Prize.
Call Number: Gitenstein Library E-BOOKISBN: 9780231184281Publication Date: 2018-01-02
A Filtered Life: Social Media on a College Campus by
"A Filtered Life is the first comprehensive ethnographic account to explore how college students create and manage multiple identities on social media" (abstract).
Call Number: LA229 .T38 2022 (print only)ISBN: 9781003182047Publication Date: 2021-12-23
The Future of the Self: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Personhood and Identity in the Digital Age by
Friedenberg (Manhattan College) deals with the psychological aspects of identity and self-presentation online.
Call Number: BF697.5.S44 F75 2020 (print only)ISBN: 9780520302426Publication Date: 2020-08-04
I Confess!: Constructing the Sexual Self in the Internet Age by Call Number: Gitenstein Library E-BOOKISBN: 9780773559103Publication Date: 2019-11-21
Intermediality, Life Writing, and American Studies by
This history and criticism of autobiography as a literary form contains several relevant chapters such as "Auto-Assembling the Self on Social Networking Sites." The contributors' "subjects of scrutiny are biographies, memoirs, graphic novels, performances, paratheatricals, musicals, silent films, movies, documentary films, and social media" (abstract).
Call Number: Gitenstein Library E-BOOKISBN: 9783110579253Publication Date: 2018-09-10
The Language of Social Media: Identity and Community on the Internet by Call Number: HM742 .L36 2014 (print only)ISBN: 9781137029300Publication Date: 2014-02-19
Mediated Interfaces: The Body on Social Media by
"Examines digital embodiment, digital representations, and visual vernaculars as a mode of identity performance and management online" (abstract).
Call Number: Gitenstein Library E-BOOKISBN: 9781501356186Publication Date: 2020-06-11
Online a Lot of the Time: Ritual, Fetish, Sign by
"The online environments Hillis [Communication, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill] examines reflect the dynamic contradictions at the core of identity and the ways these contradictions get signified" (abstract).
Call Number: HM851 .H546 2009 (print only)ISBN: 9780822344483Publication Date: 2009-05-27
Player and Avatar: The Affective Potential of Videogames by
Owen (University of Alberta, Edmonton) "explores concepts central to the design and enjoyment of video games, including affect, immersion, liveness, presence, agency, narrative, ideology and the player's virtual surrogate--the avatar" (abstract).
Call Number: GV1469.3 .O94 2017 (print only)ISBN: 9781476667195Publication Date: 2017-06-19
Stories of the Self: Life Writing After the Book by
This scholarly monograph "explores life writing after the book." It treats such topics as autobiography, identity (psychology) in mass media, and the social aspects of digital media.
Call Number: Gitenstein Library E-BOOKISBN: 9781479863600Publication Date: 2020-08-25
Find below memoirs and other life writing of persons whose professional identities have been shaped by their participation in new media.
Crash Override: How Gamergate (Nearly) Destroyed My Life, and How We Can Win the Fight Against Online Hate by Call Number: GV1469.34.A97 Q56 2017ISBN: 9781610398084Publication Date: 2017-09-05
Fakebook: A True Story, Based on Actual Lies by Call Number: Gitenstein Library E-BOOKISBN: 9781402284151Publication Date: 2013-09-17
How to Stand up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future by Call Number: PN5426.R47 A3 2022ISBN: 9780063257511Publication Date: 2022-11-29
In Real Life: My Journey to a Pixelated World by Call Number: CT275.G6285 A3 2015ISBN: 9781925184419Publication Date: 2015-05-19
Well, That Escalated Quickly: Memoirs and Mistakes of an Accidental Activist by Call Number: PN1992.4.R3573 A3 2018ISBN: 9781538761038Publication Date: 2018-05-22
These book titles appear on your syllabus.
Facebook Society: Losing Ourselves in Sharing Ourselves by Call Number: HM743.F33 S56 2018ISBN: 9780231182720Publication Date: 2018-07-17
Identity Technologies: Constructing the Self Online by Call Number: CT25 .I34 2014ISBN: 9780299296445Publication Date: 2013-12-30
Find More Books (primary + secondary)
Search our discovery service and WorldCat to find autobiographies (i.e., primary sources) and secondary criticism. Leverage the power of Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) to find precisely what you need.
Genre Headings:
- Autobiographies and Biographies are used as genre headings to identify, respectively, autobiographies and biographies. Your best bet for generating a list of autobiographies (primary).
- Autobiographical is a modifier (e.g., Autobiographical fiction but also Autobiographical memory).
Subject Headings:
- Autobiography is used as the main subject heading to find criticisms (i.e., secondary sources) about autobiographies.
- Biography, diaries, memoirs, and personal memoirs are used as sub-divisions to find primary sources (see below). "Biography" here identifies biographies (secondary) and autobiographies (primary).
- Similar in concept is personal narratives, another sub-division that identifies eyewitness accounts of wars and other historical events (e.g., World War, 1939-1945 — Personal narratives).
- More sub-divisions: correspondence, interviews, letters, manuscripts, oratory, and speeches. All reveal primary sources.
- Terms not used in LCSH but worth searching for are life story(ies), life narrative(s), life writing (particularly useful), and testimonies.
- For this course, Online identities and Self-presentation are quite useful subject headings, which mostly lead to secondary analysis. Find more books by searching all of these subjects in Worldcat.
Examples:
- Autobiographies [primary]
- Autobiography—Women authors [secondary]
- Autobiography—Women authors—Bibliography [tertiary]
- Autobiography—Women authors—History and criticism [secondary]
- Bloggers—United States—Biography [primary/secondary]
- Internet personalities—United States—Biography [prim./secondary]
- Ressa, Maria [autobiographer or diarist as subject]
- "Women scholars" AND Biography [primary/secondary]
Note: Select the "Books, Media & More" radio button and then re-execute your search to include online journal articles in your results set.
Digital Dissertation
Self, Surveillance, and Sociality: Aesthetics of the Diaristic Mode in Visual New Media by
"Recognizing the serial, fragmentary, and revelatory nature of the self accounting prevalent in digital media networks, this dissertation explores a particular mode of autobiographical discourse that is often overlooked by scholars: the diary. Often associated with teenage girls and queer subjectivity, the diary has been pushed to the margins of literary history and is often read as documentary evidence of history, rather than an aesthetic mode of autobiography. This same dynamic is true of diaristic discourse in contemporary social media, which is derided as frivolous while it is simultaneously scrutinized as an authentic record of the subject" (abstract). English Department, University of California, Riverside.
Call Number: Doctoral DissertationISBN: 9781339029078Publication Date: 2015
ILL (for Books) and WorldCat
Use Interlibrary Loan (ILL) to request books and book chapters not held by our library. Chapters typically arrive within hours. Physical books take days.
WorldCat is a "union catalog" of millions of records for books held by thousands of libraries. Search WorldCat to find more books about your topic.
Identify e-books available to read or borrow immediately by conducting an Advanced search. Look for the Library Code box toward the bottom of the page. Enter one of the following library codes:
- INARC (e-books from Internet Archive)
- HATHI (e-books from HathiTrust)
- NJT (books/e-books from our Gitenstein Library)
- OAPEN (open access e-books)