Biographical research - Wikipedia

Throughout history, individuals have recorded their own lives and experiences. These personal writings provide an understanding of the ways in which lives have been lived, and the most These personal writings provide an understanding of the ways in which lives have been lived, and the most fundamental accounts of what it means to be a self in the world.

Analysing the core themes in autobiographical writing, including confession, conversion, testimony, romanticism, and the journeying self, this VSI discusses the autobiographical consciousness and the roles played by time, memory, and identity , and considers the relationship between psychoanalysis and autobiography.


  • An Introduction to Biographical Research;
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  • biography studies | The Biography Society;
  • Auguries of Innocence.
  • Tag Archives: biography studies.
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It also explores the themes of self-portraiture, photography, and performance. A Very Short Introduction looks at the origins and development of biographical writing.


  • Biographical Studies - Very Short Introductions.
  • Biographical Studies?
  • SAGE Biographical Research - SAGE Research Methods.

Why do certain people and historical events arouse so much interest? How can biographies be compared with history and works of fiction? Does a biography need to be true? Is it acceptable to omit or conceal things? I use the word creative advisedly.

For what becomes apparent, when you sit in on one of our meetings, is the sense of being present at the creation: It is a deeply rewarding exercise, held for just two hours every month. Without it I would feel the poorer, since it reminds me in the most comforting way that, although mine may be a somewhat solitary vocation as a biographer, I am part of a larger, collective, creative literary endeavor.

Becoming an auto/biographical researcher

And by that, I mean the conceptual, generative, artistic and intellectual investment that goes into the making of a good biography , even a great one. It disappoints me, frankly, that we focus almost exclusive academic and educational attention upon fictional art: Participating in my writers groups in Boston and New Orleans I am privileged to watch the generative process, as it pertains to the creation of a non-fiction work.

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Yet who in the world outside our groups is ever aware of that creative path leading to the finished work — the challenges faced, the battles fought over voice, narrative, source, insight, revelation, presentation? Reviewers have a lot to answer for, as well as our teachers of literature. Seldom if ever do reviewers identify, let alone comment on, the style or structure of our major biographies: Moreover biographies are mostly seen and evaluated by such reviewers as information — preferably new.

Not, however, as a literary contribution to our culture. How might we overcome this almost willful misunderstanding of biography in its literary, compositional mode in modern society — akin, say, to modern serious music?

BIOGRAPHICAL STUDIES

If this is so, however, why not encourage teachers to extend their purview still further to include profiles, obituaries and great biographies — areas that, until now, teachers have been less than competent or even interested to do? Teaching biography as part of non-fiction writing courses is certainly one important key: But we could also, I would argue, also engage with the creators of modern biography. A third form of biographical research is defined as life history writing and the narrative study of lives with strong allegiance to the social science research traditions of oral history and narrative discourse and, specifically, great devotion to theoretical constructs from sociology and psychology.

Case study paradigms emerge as life history writers address issues of generalizability, social interaction-social structure, and reliability and validity as well as the biographical quest of any study of a life. An interpretive narrative of the writer, alongside the presentation of the biographical subject, becomes part of the research.

SAGE Biographical Research

Neither is this style burdened by the ultimate interpretation of the subject that must be accepted by the reader. No definitive listing of biographical types can ever be constructed since, fortunately, new forms—content and process oriented—are continually being conceived and explored. Other more content-related designations include feminist biography Alpern, et al. The Challenge of feminist biography.


  1. Charakteristika von Meinungsführern: Interpersonelle Kommunikation und ihr Einfluss auf die individuelle Meinungsbildung (German Edition).
  2. With Culture in Mind: Psychoanalytic Stories (Relational Perspectives Book Series);
  3. I Only Cry At Night, living with Sickle Cell Disease.
  4. Biographical research.