Book excerpt: In contemporary societies privatization has long ceased to be just an economic concept; rather, it must increasingly be made to refer to the ongoing shrinking of the public space under the impact of the representation of individual lives and images, which cuts across all discourses, genres and media to become one of the primary means of production of culture. This volume is intended to cover such an historical, social and intellectual ground, where self-representation comes to the fore. Targeting mostly an academic readership but certainly also of interest to the general educated public, it collects a wide range of essays dealing with diverse modes of life writing and portraying from a variety of perspectives and focusing on different historical periods and media. It thus offers itself as a major contribution to a better understanding of the world we live in: its past legacy and present configuration.ContentsIntroduction: Signposts of the Self in Modernity Part I. The Representational Dilemma Christopher PRENDERGAST: The Self as a Work of Art: Proust's ScepticismPaulo DE MEDEIROS: (Re-)Constructing, (Re-)Membering Postcolonial Selves Aleksandra PODSIADLIK: `Doing Identity? in Fiction: Identity Construction as a Dialogue between Individuals and Cultural Narratives Clara ROWLAND: Self-Representation and Temporality: `Parabasis? in Guimar'es Rosa's Grande Sert'o: Veredas Daniel ROVERS: New Man: Marie Kessels? Inner Portrait of a Writing Self Gaston FRANSSEN: Good Intentions, Ethical Commitment, and Impersonal Poetry:The Work of Gerrit Kouwenaar Jan RUPP: `For-Getting? Plural Selves: Narrative and Identity in Caryl Phillips's A Distant Shore Lars BERNAERTS: The Straitjacket of Normality. The Interaction with the Psychiatrist in Maurits Dekker's Waarom ik niet krankzinnig benLars DALUM GRANILD: The Self's Struggle for Recognition: August Strindberg and the Other Marinela FREITAS: Unshaded Shadows: Performances of Gender in Emily Dickinson and Luiza Neto Jorge Part II. Signalling Identity Peter BROOKS: The Identity Paradigm Roland GREENE: The Global I Davy VAN OERS: Staining the Past with Ink in Lorenzo Da Ponte's Memorie (1830): The Fallacies of Autobiographical `Writing? Eli PARK SORENSEN: Between Autobiography and Fiction: Narrating the Self in Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Vivir para contarla Mirjam TRUWANT: The Passion of Lena Christ: From Fictionalized Autobiography to Biographical Novel Ricardo GIL SOEIRO: Dreams in the Mirror: George Steiner by George Steiner Part III. Images of the Self Across the Arts Timothy MATHEWS: Reading W. G. Sebald with Alberto Giacometti Paula MOR?O: The Impossible Self-Portrait Anna Viola SBORGI: Between Literature and the Visual Arts: Portraits of the Self in William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, and Fernando Pessoa Jakob STOUGAARD-NIELSEN: Photography and Shadow-Writing: Henry James's Revisions of the Self in the New York Edition Patrick VAN ROSSEM: Consumed by the Audience. Inhibition, Fear, and Anxiety in the Oeuvre of Bruce Nauman Anke BROUWERS: There Was Something about Mary: Mary Pickford's Perfect `Little American? Verena-Susanna NUNGESSER: Paint it Red: Death Artistry as a Portrait of the Self