Includes bibliographical references (pages 177-190) and index
1. Identity and the coming-of-age narrative -- Recreating womanhood -- -- 2. Feminism, autobiography, and theories of subjectivity -- Feminism and the autobiographical act -- Western theories of subjectivity -- Feminist poststructuralist revisions to subjectivity -- -- 3. Coming of age in America -- Historical accounts of adolescence -- Psychological accounts of adolescence -- Literary accounts of coming age -- The coming-of-age-narrative -- American grand narratives of coming of age -- -- 4. Specifying American girlhood : Annie Dillard and Anne Moody -- Specifying the universal in An American childhood -- Hegemonic inscription of the body in Coming of age in Mississippi -- -- 5. "Lying contests" : fictional autobiography and autobiographical fiction -- "Lying contests" : signifying coming of age Janie's ways of knowing -- -- 6. "Room for paradoxes" : creating a hybrid identity -- A "World of paper strengths" : the education of Kate Simon -- Mythology and narrative in the creation of identity: the Woman warrior
