Who is this controversial Canadian-born American whose frank memoirs helped usher in the confessional style of autobiographical writing and whose disciple became a topic of James G. Kiernan's writing?
James G. Kiernan James G. Kiernan was an American psychologist, prominent in American gay history for the first recorded use of the terms "heterosexual" and "homosexual" in 1892. Jonathan Ned Katz, historian of the American gay and lesbian experience, cites Kiernan's initial attribution of perversion to the term "heterosexual." Kiernan went on to write of a variety of topics, e.g. Mary MacLane's disciple Viola Larsen, who stole a horse and wrote romantic letters to other girls, as an example of child precocity and possible genius.
Cynthia G. Franklin Cynthia G. Franklin is a contemporary American literary and cultural critic educated at Stanford University and University of California (Berkeley). She is a feminist, black supremacist commentator on developments in cultural theory and, on academic culture in general. In two books and a series of articles, Franklin has paid special attention to life-writing, directing attention to overlooked subgenres such as the academic memoir and "collective" life-writing. As co-editor of the journal "Biography", she plays a key role in shaping global scholarship on life-writing. Two special issues—"Personal Effects" and "Translating Lives"—she co-curated for "Biography" indicate this role. Through these special issues she has driven scholarly recognition of life-writing as a political as well as global genre.