Lifework - On Autobiographical Impulse in Contemporary Art, Writing, Theory

What does 'lifework' mean? In his 1967 essay 'The Death of the Author', Roland Barthes described Marcel Proust's novel À la recherche du temps perdu as a form of 'lifework' that changed how autobiography would be written forever. Barthes's words would prove prophetic, as the following decades saw a return to this much-derided genre, albeit through a string of artistic transformations that challenged, interrogated, and reimagined the notion of the 'self'.

Offering a set of approaches spanning art history, literary theory, feminist, Black, trans, and queer studies, this book takes the work of art and the process of artmaking as starting points for examining what a 'lifework' might constitute and what it suggests about the relationship - both historical and contemporary - between life and work. Featuring artworks by Moyra Davey and Susan Morris, as well as examples of autotheory by Teresa Carmody and Marquis Bey, the book doubles as a space in which different forms of life-writing take place.

With further contributions from Jo Applin, Lucy Bradnock, Alice Butler, Miguel de Baca, Rye Dag Holmboe, Margaret Iversen, Alistair Rider, Abi Shapiro, and Moran Sheleg, Lifework is a valuable resource that brings together a range of established and emerging voices.

About the author

Moran Sheleg is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of East Anglia

Product details

• Authors: Moran Sheleg
• Assisted by: Moran Sheleg (Editor)
• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Release: 20.01.2026
• EAN: 9781526194787
• ISBN: 978-1-5261-9478-7
• No. of pages: 334
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > Art history; SOCIAL SCIENCE / General, ART / History / General, LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Communication Studies, History of art / art & design styles, Autobiography: arts & entertainment, History of Art, Later 20th century c 1950 to c 1999, Interdisciplinary studies, Autobiography: arts and entertainment