Different Lives

Global Perspectives on Biography in Public Cultures and Societies
Erscheinungsjahr 2020
ISBN: 978-90-04-42812-6
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 1, 278 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 563 g

Reihe: Biography Studies

Internationally acclaimed biographies are almost always written by British or American biographers. But what is the state of the art of biography in other parts of the world? Introduced by Richard Holmes, the volume Different Lives offers a global perspective: seventeen scholars vividly describe the biographical tradition in their countries of interest. They show how biography functions as a public genre, featuring specific societal issues and opinion-making. Indeed, the volume aims to answer the question: how can biography contribute to a better understanding of differences between societies and cultures? Special attention is given to the US, China and the Netherlands. Other contributions are on Australia, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Iceland, Iran, Italy, New Zealand, Spain, and South Africa.

"This book represents a much needed breakdown of the history and current status of Biography Studies throughout the world. Any educator teaching a course in higher education that includes Biography Studies should definitely consider this as a major text for inclusion."
Billy Tooma, film maker and Assistant Professor, Wessex County College

"The rise of biography is the literary event of our time; Hamilton and Renders are its pioneer scholars, and their compelling primer is a must read."

Joanny Moulin, Institut Universitaire de France, on Nigel Hamilton and Hans Renders, in: The ABC of Modern Biography (2018)

See inside the book

Autoren/Hrsg.

Renders, Hans

Veltman, David

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kultur- und Ideengeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Contents

Acknowledgements

List of Figures

Notes on Contributors

Introduction
Richard Holmes

Different Lives in a Global World
Hans Renders

Truth, Lies and Fake Truth: the Future of Biography
Nigel Hamilton

Historical Biography in Canada: Historians, Publishers, and the Public
Daniel R. Meister

Biography as Discourse: South African Biography in the Post-Apartheid Era
Lindie Koorts

‘La pauvre Belgique’: How a Debate over the Repression after the Second World War Informed a Biographical

Tradition in Belgium
David Veltman

Biography in Spain: a Historical and Historiographic Perspective
María Jesús González

The Chinese Sense of Self and Biographical Narrative: an Overview
Kerry Brown

Double Dutch: the Art of Presidential Biography
Carl Rollyson

Biography in Australia: Different Yet the Same? All Connected Flatland?
Melanie Nolan

Writing Lives in Contemporary Italy
Yannick Gouchan

Hidden and Forbidden Issues in Works of Iranian Biography
Sahar Vahdati Hosseinian

From Reticence to Revelation: Biography in New Zealand
Doug Munro

The Icelandic Biography and Egodocuments in Historical Writing
Sigurður Gylfi Magnússon

Between ‘Creators and Bearers of the Czech National Myth’ and an ‘Academic Suicide’: Czech Biography in the

Twenty-First Century
Jana Wohlmuth Markupová

Biographies and Their Agendas: the Danish Biographical Tradition in a Historical Perspective
Joanna Cymbrykiewicz

The Biography’s Pretension to Truth Is Relative. Biography in the Netherlands
Elsbeth Etty

Inception, Inheritance and Innovation: Sima Qian, Liang Qichao and the Modernization of Chinese Biography
Liu Jialin

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

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 the series editor of Biography Studies at Brill.

David Veltman works at the Biography Institute (University of Groningen) on a PhD thesis about the artist Felix de Boeck. David has an MA in modern Dutch literature. He has published before in Biography and Australian Journal of Biography and History.