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Recent academic historiography has seen a profusion of theoretical perspectives on biography, both analytical and descriptive. Yet many biographers still fear ‘theory’ as antithetical to accessible narration of real lives.
This volume presents eighteen essays by more than a dozen scholars and practitioners from Australia, Belgium, Germany, Great Britain, Holland, Hungary, Iceland, and the United States who seek to banish such fear. Writing with candor, wide experience and familiarity with modern teaching, they examine the riches greeting the biographer willing to think more deeply about biography: its inner workings and rationale in a world still hungry for fact and truth.
Contributors are: Nigel Hamilton, Sigurður Gylfi Magnússon, Emma McEwin, Melanie Nolan, Kerstin Maria Pahl, Eric Palmen, Hans Renders, Carl Rollyson, David T. Roth, István M. Szijártó, Jeffrey Tyssens, and David Veltman.
See inside the book.
Recent academic historiography has seen a profusion of theoretical perspectives on biography, both analytical and descriptive. Yet many biographers still fear ‘theory’ as antithetical to accessible narration of real lives.
This volume presents eighteen essays by more than a dozen scholars and practitioners from Australia, Belgium, Germany, Great Britain, Holland, Hungary, Iceland, and the United States who seek to banish such fear. Writing with candor, wide experience and familiarity with modern teaching, they examine the riches greeting the biographer willing to think more deeply about biography: its inner workings and rationale in a world still hungry for fact and truth.
Contributors are: Nigel Hamilton, Sigurður Gylfi Magnússon, Emma McEwin, Melanie Nolan, Kerstin Maria Pahl, Eric Palmen, Hans Renders, Carl Rollyson, David T. Roth, István M. Szijártó, Jeffrey Tyssens, and David Veltman.
See inside the book.
Price: $155.00
Pages: 276
Publisher: Brill
Imprint: Brill
Series: Biography Studies
Publication Date:
02 December 2021
ISBN: 9789004498549
Format: Hardcover
"This exciting new volume provides reflections and debates about biographical theory and methods from some of the field’s leading practitioners and critics through a series of essays, case studies, and jousting among microhistorians. It raises some of the fundamental questions about the nature of biography, if not always answering them definitively. The debates will continue, and this volume will play an important role in stimulating and advancing them."
- Daniel R. Meister, University of New Brunswick
“[T]his book [...] proves to be an important attempt to find theoretical background for biographical research. [...] With the return to its academic roots, it is only logical that biography needs to find theoretical and epistemological ‘allies’ and even though it is not an easy task, I praise this book for initiating it.”
- Jana Wohlmuth Markupová, Charles University, Dejiny-Teorie-Kritika, February 2022.
- Daniel R. Meister, University of New Brunswick
“[T]his book [...] proves to be an important attempt to find theoretical background for biographical research. [...] With the return to its academic roots, it is only logical that biography needs to find theoretical and epistemological ‘allies’ and even though it is not an easy task, I praise this book for initiating it.”
- Jana Wohlmuth Markupová, Charles University, Dejiny-Teorie-Kritika, February 2022.
Hans Renders is Professor in History and Theory of Biography at the University of Groningen (The Netherlands). He has written two biographies and has published on biographical theory in various international journals. He is Editor-in-Chief of the series Biography Studies.
David Veltman has a PhD from the University of Groningen. His dissertation, a biography of the artist Felix de Boeck, was written at the Biography Institute. He has published before in Biography. An Interdisciplinary Quarterly.
David Veltman has a PhD from the University of Groningen. His dissertation, a biography of the artist Felix de Boeck, was written at the Biography Institute. He has published before in Biography. An Interdisciplinary Quarterly.