Even literary critics and theorists authored memoirs, domesticating theory within direct testimony.

Evidence

This memoir imperative does not stop with creative types; many writers traditionally oriented as critics have also fulfilled it: Frank Lentricchia (The Edge of Night), Jane Gallop (Feminist Accused of Sexual Harassment), Michael Ryan (Secret Life), Anne Cvetkovich (Depression), Hazel Carby (Imperial Intimacies), Samuel Delany (Times Square Red, Times Square Blue), Eve Sedgwick (A Dialogue on Love), Jane Tompkins (A Life in School), Henry Louis Gates (Colored People), Saidiya Hartman (Lose Your Mother), Colin Dayan (In the Belly of Her Ghost)—this is but a partial list of literary scholars who’ve authored memoirs, often domesticating versions of literary theory within. Success in one section of the bookstore does not suffice; writers of all stripes are urged to authenticate their voice, fortify their brands, and expand their audience by testifying more directly. — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 158

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to reader’s defense of mediation: scholars domesticating theory into memoir is a case where even theory submits to the immediacy imperative she opposes.