Life Writing and Literary Métissage as an Ethos for Our Times

This book introduces literary métissage as a way to research, teach, and live ethically «with all our relations» in our precarious times. The authors theorize and perform literary métissage through the praxis of life writing, braiding their autobiographical texts, in various (mixed) genres, into seven themes. Life Writing and Literary Métissage as an Ethos for Our Times explores this writing praxis, with its more inclusive and generative notions of knowledge and knowledge practices, as a tool for creating more just societies and schools.

The Authors: Erika Hasebe-Ludt is an associate professor of teacher education in the Faculty of Education at The University of Lethbridge. She teaches and researches in the areas of language and literacy, and curriculum studies. In addition to various articles in edited books and journals, she is the co-editor (with Wanda Hurren) of Curriculum Intertext: Place/Language/Pedagogy. Together with Cynthia Chambers, Carl Leggo and other researchers, she is investigating life writing as one of the new literacies in Canadian cosmopolitan schools. Cynthia Chambers is a professor in the Faculty of Education at The University of Lethbridge. She teaches and researches in curriculum studies, language and literacy, and indigenous studies. Her essays, memoir and stories have been published in edited collections and various periodicals. As well as the research on life writing, she works collaboratively with indigenous communities on literacies of place, human relations and the material world. Carl Leggo is a poet and professor in the Department of Language and Literacy Education at the University of British Columbia. He teaches courses in English education, writing, and narrative inquiry. Carl Leggo’s poetry, fiction, and essays have been published in many journals. He is the author of several books including: Growing Up Perpendicular on the Side of a Hill, View from My Mother’s House, Come-By-Chance, and Teaching to Wonder: Responding to Poetry in the Secondary Classroom. Also, he is a co-editor of Being with A/r/tography (with Stephanie Springgay, Rita L. Irwin, and Peter Gouzouasis), and of Creative Expression, Creative Education (with Robert Kelly).