THE (OPPRESSIVELY OBLIGATORY) TABLE OF CONTENTS
(WITHOUT WHICH THE WRITER HAS BEEN TOLD SHE
WOULD NOT GRADUATE)[1]*
Chapter Page
I INTRODUCTION TO THE
DISSERTATION……………………………………….. 1
II COMPOUND FRACTURE…………………………….. 4
III ARCHIVED DOCUMENTS……………………………. 5
IV INVENTORY……………………………………………… 8
V THE HALF LIFE OF STONE………………………….. 11
VI BEDTIME STORIES……………………………………… 16
VII DEAR BIOGRAPHER, PART II……………………….. 26
VIII THE WRITING STORY OF “BEDTIME STORIES”… 90
Conventions and Professional Contexts…. 90
Personal Contexts and Ethical Questions. 103
IX NAVIGATING OUR SUBJECT POSITIONS:
THE PLACE OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN OUR
CHANGING FIELD………………………………………… 112
X ADOPTION…………………………………………………… 126
XI WHAT THE ADOPTION AGENCY COULD
HAVE TOLD ME…………………………………………….. 137
XII A LETTER TO VALENTINA WASSON………………… 170
XIII EMAIL…………………………………………………………. 178
XIV SELECTIONS: THIS IS NOT MY NARRATIVE……….. 201
XV HYMNS TO THE LARES……………………………………. 250
XVI REINVENTING THE FYC NARRATIVE ESSAY
ASSIGNMENT AS NARRATIVE INQUIRY:
MOVING BEYOND THE PURELY PERSONAL TO
HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL DENOTATION
AND CONNOTATION…………………………………………270
XVII THE REINCARNATION OF JULIA……………………… 280
XVIII OVARY…………………………………………………………. 291
XIX HENRIETTA, THE BLESSED MOTHER AND MY
FALL FROM GRACE…………………………………………. 300
XX FURTHER SELECTIONS: THIS IS NOT
MY NARRATIVE……………………………………………… 314
XXI WORKS CITED…………………………………………………. 338
[1] The reader should note that this Table of Contents is neither necessary nor appropriate to this dissertation in that its imposed page and chapter numbers imply and attempt to prescribe a specific and correct order in which the various and sundry sections of the document must be read, when no such prescription is intended; in fact the opposite is true. This Table of Contents is included under protest and should be ignored by any reader who is not employed by the Teachers College, Columbia University Office of Doctoral Studies. Upon reading this dissertation, one may even wonder how such a progressive institution as Columbia University could demand such a thing, when the addition of said Table of Contents clearly flies in the face of the goals of the dissertation itself, and as such is highly inappropriate. Yes, the writer agrees; one may well wonder. So much for the liberatory goals of higher education.
*Ironically, the writer was not allowed to include THIS Table of Contents in her dissertation, and was instead forced to include a proper and appropriate and NOT SNARKY Table of Contents in her dissertation, again in the interest of graduation. However, the writer did sneak a version of the footnote into the body of the work.
This is Not My Narrative 