Face to face with Emmanuela : reflections on the uses of the memoir in exploring the life story of a nineteenth century woman teacher

Abstract

This paper is concerned with ‘A little Memoir of a Good and Pious Woman Educator’, namely Emmanuela Azzopardi, a headteacher living in the second half of nineteenth century Malta. The memoir – written by Canon Paolo Pullicino, the Director of Education at that time – is a very important one as it uniquely tells the story of a woman’s life, outlining the official duties of the teacher and defining her ideal characteristics. My interests in this particular archive do not only lie in examining the virtues expected of the woman teacher; a reading which is very useful in tracing the formation of the teacher as we know it today. Feminist poststructuralist theories lead me to question the uses of the memoir itself, its politics of representation and the spaces it opens for the theoretical considerations of the portrayal of this teacher. As a feminist exploring knowledge/ power and gender relations, I will be discussing issues of women’s voice and representations, particularly the possible uses of the space created by the memoir for subversive purposes.