Academic Autobiography and Transdisciplinary Crossings in Shirley Geok-lin Lim's Among the White Moon Faces

Abstract

The growing number of academic autobiographies published in recent years has sparked interesting debates on the nature and function of life writing. We now grapple with the question of the degrees to which autobiographical and professional writing function in conjunction – if we can read autobiographical writing from professional perspectives or, alternatively, to what extent scholarship grows from personal experiences. This approach to the academic autobiography links our notions about processes of self-inscription to the forms of production of historical and cultural knowledge. This essay examines these ideas by reading Shirley Geok-lin Lim's Among the White Moon Faces (1997). Lim's literary and scholarly production superlatively illustrates the development of contemporary perspectives on national identity and language, migration, and homelands. Her work, which includes poetry collections, novels, short stories, academic studies and a memoir – compels readers to engage the interplay between the competing forces of race, ethnicity, gender, and nationality within spaces that embody these conflicts. I argue that a comparative reading of personal and professional narratives invites us to reconsider how, working within specific epistemic contexts, academics like Lim consciously negotiate the intersection between personal history and academic commitment, a vital subtext in their autobiographical performance.