Different Lives
Global Perspectives on Biography in Public Cultures and Societies
Published on 11. June 2020
Book
Hardback
294 pages
978-90-04-42812-6 (ISBN)
Description
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
"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
Reviews / Votes
"This collection should be on the shelf of everyone interested in Biographies Studies. [....]. These essays are not, to be sure, dry and stuffy. There is real passion within each and every one of them, which is indicative of the drive their authors have in wanting to create something that is both an educational tool and a compelling read. Different Lives is a welcomed, and much needed, addition to Biography Studies". Billy Tooma."The essays in Different Lives are salient and compelling exactly because of constraints and the variety of forms in which they are expressed socially, culturally, and eventually in the story of a life."
- Marlene Kadar in Netherlandic Studies, 41.1 (2021): 91-96.
"Different Lives is a worthy opening to a series that promises to advance understanding of the cultural, political, and aesthetic stakes of biography, within and beyond national contexts: researchers in biography will eagerly await future volumes in the series."
- Caitriona Ni Dhuill in Biography, Volume 44, Number 4, 2021, pp. 621-626.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Leiden
Netherlands
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 155 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
585 gr
ISBN-13
978-90-04-42812-6 (9789004428126)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
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.
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.
Content
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
Maria Jesus Gonzalez
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
Sigur?ur Gylfi Magnusson
Between 'Creators and Bearers of the Czech National Myth' and an 'Academic Suicide': Czech Biography in the
Twenty-First Century
Jana Wohlmuth Markupova
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
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
Maria Jesus Gonzalez
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
Sigur?ur Gylfi Magnusson
Between 'Creators and Bearers of the Czech National Myth' and an 'Academic Suicide': Czech Biography in the
Twenty-First Century
Jana Wohlmuth Markupova
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