{"id":2872,"date":"2014-12-08T08:47:28","date_gmt":"2014-12-08T16:47:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/?p=2872"},"modified":"2014-12-08T09:18:25","modified_gmt":"2014-12-08T17:18:25","slug":"is-first-person-narrative-killing-discourse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/2014\/12\/is-first-person-narrative-killing-discourse.html","title":{"rendered":"Is First-Person Narrative Killing Discourse?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[contextly_auto_sidebar id=&#8221;MSKRrA0yUeF2He6kLUhFxQKSROhnm7wv&#8221;]<\/p>\n<p>OVER the last two weeks I&#8217;ve been speaking about tradition with a number of accomplished women. My final installment includes a bit of a twist: The essayist Meghan Daum told me about a tradition she considers dangerous. Overuse of the &#8220;I&#8221; in storytelling is crowding out the larger world, she says.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/url-4.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-2873\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/url-4.jpg\" alt=\"url-4\" width=\"103\" height=\"160\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8230;I feel like 70 percent of what people share on Facebook are personal essays. A lot of them are by women, writing about their experiences, and a lot of them are fantastic and smart, and rigorously thought through. But others, because of the pace of digital media, have the opportunity to rush and write something and then have something quote-unquote published. We\u2019ve all done that; I\u2019ve done that. I\u2019m not casting aspersions on anybody. But that\u2019s a real danger. Part of the process is having a process, and having an editor, and writing several drafts and having time pass before writing about this experience. The Internet has allowed a lot of first drafts to go out into the world. And when those are first-person, sometimes you get stuff that\u2019s uncooked.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>She also talks about the journalistic stakes, the role of feminism, the Rolling Stone rape scandal, how this works through the generations, and the triumph of Joan Didion.<\/p>\n<p>Daum&#8217;s full <a title=\"Daum on first-person\" href=\"http:\/\/www.salon.com\/2014\/12\/06\/meghan_daum_on_rolling_stone_personal_essays_internet_culture_we%E2%80%99re_so_driven_by_the_idea_that_one_person%E2%80%99s_story_can_guide_an_entire_narrative\/\" target=\"_blank\">piece<\/a> is worth reading, and don&#8217;t miss her new book, <em>The Unspeakable<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[contextly_auto_sidebar id=&#8221;MSKRrA0yUeF2He6kLUhFxQKSROhnm7wv&#8221;] OVER the last two weeks I&#8217;ve been speaking about tradition with a number of accomplished women. My final installment includes a bit of a twist: The essayist Meghan Daum told me about a tradition she considers dangerous. Overuse of the &#8220;I&#8221; in storytelling is crowding out the larger world, she says. &#8230;I feel [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[35,27,34,30],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2872","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-books","7":"category-journalism","8":"category-literary","9":"category-los-angeles","10":"entry","11":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2872"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2875,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2872\/revisions\/2875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}