{"content":{"sharePage":{"page":0,"digests":[{"id":"28574887","dateCreated":"1287246588","smartDate":"Oct 16, 2010","userCreated":{"username":"efairey","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/efairey","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"},"monitored":false,"locked":false,"links":{"self":"https:\/\/lis608.wikispaces.com\/share\/view\/28574887"},"dateDigested":1532092819,"startDate":null,"sharedType":"discussion","title":"game plan","description":"Hi Lauren and Caitlin,
\n So, I can work on this more on Monday and Tuesday, and maybe Sunday night, but right now I have to go and play 2 weddings and teach all day tomorrow. I am happy writing up connective tissue, but if you want to take a stab at it go ahead--can put together an alphabetized, un-annotated biobliography?
\nE.","replyPages":[{"page":0,"digests":[{"id":"28575141","body":"I can put together a bibliography.
\n
\nI've started an outline for the final paper, too, but on Google docs (I think the end paper will have way too much information to edit on this page). Can I have your email addresses so I can share it with you?
\n
\nAlso, just again, I won't be in class Wednesday (wedding on the west coast Thursday!), so can you hand in the hard copy?","dateCreated":"1287247264","smartDate":"Oct 16, 2010","userCreated":{"username":"laurenorso","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/laurenorso","imageUrl":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/pic\/1286135445\/laurenorso-lg.jpg"}},{"id":"28577105","body":"Okay, I've outlined the final paper (literal outline; barebones suggestions we can fill in) included the lit review and the bibilography. I can share on google docs.","dateCreated":"1287254342","smartDate":"Oct 16, 2010","userCreated":{"username":"laurenorso","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/laurenorso","imageUrl":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/pic\/1286135445\/laurenorso-lg.jpg"}},{"id":"28577173","body":"Or should I email you the bibliography separately? It loses the formatting when I post here, eek.
\n
\nAlso, 20 sources. Great work!","dateCreated":"1287254504","smartDate":"Oct 16, 2010","userCreated":{"username":"laurenorso","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/laurenorso","imageUrl":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/pic\/1286135445\/laurenorso-lg.jpg"}}],"more":0}]},{"id":"28553772","dateCreated":"1287170798","smartDate":"Oct 15, 2010","userCreated":{"username":"laurenorso","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/laurenorso","imageUrl":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/pic\/1286135445\/laurenorso-lg.jpg"},"monitored":false,"locked":false,"links":{"self":"https:\/\/lis608.wikispaces.com\/share\/view\/28553772"},"dateDigested":1532092820,"startDate":null,"sharedType":"discussion","title":"survey","description":"Also, started putting this together quickly. Can add\/change anything, just wanted to get it started
\n
\nhttp:\/\/www.surveymonkey.com\/s\/Y5NH69X<\/a>","replyPages":[{"page":0,"digests":[],"more":0}]},{"id":"28544573","dateCreated":"1287162291","smartDate":"Oct 15, 2010","userCreated":{"username":"efairey","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/efairey","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"},"monitored":false,"locked":false,"links":{"self":"https:\/\/lis608.wikispaces.com\/share\/view\/28544573"},"dateDigested":1532092820,"startDate":null,"sharedType":"discussion","title":"What I have so far","description":"The ancient art of biography was traditionally more "popular" than history because it was more personal. Plutarch's Lives of Great Men, and Suetonius' Caesars are among the first works which defined biography as a distinct prose genre. It used the same tools as history to make a portrait in gossip. The modern word "biography" now has many shades of meaning, from the psychological case study to the short web bio. It seems arbitrary to select "historical" biographers, except in that they are closest to history, the original source of biography. We cannot compare all the different brands of biography. Since this is beyond our scope,we have kept in mind a focused point of comparison: The difference in research methods between historical biographers and "specialty" biographers.
\n
\nThe word "speciality," being a generalization, requires explicating. For the purpose of this study and for our literary review, "specialty" denotes a modern, popular portrait with a commercial slant, whereas "historical" signifies a biography with the goal of scholarly advancement. The difference is not one of subject matter as much as tone, but some subjects do seem to lend themselves more to popular recension than historical analysis: Hollywood stars and sports heroes are two examples. On the other hand, biographies of people who played some major role in history tend to be "scholarly." The biography of Napoleon is scholarly, while that of Mick Jagger is popular. This distinction between the seriousness of history and the trashy tone of biography is one if the original distinctions between the two genres. Although it is possible to blur it, and write an historical account of a popular phenomenon, or a popular version of a powerful figure of history, there is a real difference in prestige and market between the different types. (sales records?)
\n
\nIn our literary review, we have striven to get a good general sample of historical and scholarly methodologies, as well as insights into popular biographic techniques.The weight of literature on biographic techniques is very much heavier on the side of historical biography. Perhaps this is because the historical element is taken more seriously. There is a fairly wide range of recent sources on modern methodologies and sources for general biographic techniques of the academy, as well as for a few sub-genres, such as music. A few good general studies and surveys include Wengraf (2001), Tibb (2003) and Miller (2005). Tibb focuses on the availability of primary resources for biographers, and discusses whether advances in descriptive markup languages now employed by librarians and information professionals really helping biographic historians. Her very useful article gives a history of studies that have been done on historians information seeking behaviors, and then reports the finds of a new study of American historians at sixty-eight top-ranked institutions. Tibb finds a range of use from print to use of on-line databases, Web searching, and makes suggestion as to what this implies for archives and virtual repositories. Wengraf has created a highly practical manual on proper practices for semi-structured interviews that encompasses the entire process, from creating good questions to behavior in the interview setting. This could be useful as a a way to see how biographers construct interactions with subjects. It is highly technical, so it is difficult for the non-professional to understand, but it would be interesting to see to what degree our interviews match this sort of methodology. Miller has collected a four volume, encyclopedic range of 65 articles on biography that represent the last 5 decades of professional and academic descriptions of biographers conducting research in practice. On the whole, though it records debates of approach, the scholars in the book do not propose a theory of biographic method that is distinct from the historical.
\n
\nOn the premise that the historical biography shares a methodological basis with history, its was useful to look at some surveys of historians' techniques, on which we have the useful studies of Case (1991), Dalton & Charnido (2004), and Delgadillo & Lynch (1999).
\nCase describes a study of 20 American historians. Focuses on motivations and results of information needs of historians. The study surveys 20 historians, and asked about research topics, specific projects, use of archives, categorizing materials, writing habits and computer use. Suggestions for future use of such sources discussed. Dalton & Charnigo's article "examines which materials historians consider most important and how the discover them" including use of electronic materials. They found that print format (book reviews and browsing) remains most popular, though electronic resources "increased use of catalogs and indexes\u2026to identify appropriate primary and secondary sources of information." 278 surveys were returned (27% of those sent out); 33 followup surveys were returned (out of 66). Many historians said that AV materials were important to their work, but very few ever cite them. This study could be a useful methodological model for our current study. Delgadillo & Lynch's paper investigates whether graduate students exhibit the same information-seeking behaviors as established scholars and questions how they use new technologies vs. reference services at the university library. It is limited in scope to one program at one university (22 history graduate students at UCLA in 1995), and makes the general assumption from students is that library will have what they need, whether or not the library does. This topic may be too specific as a model for us, but the paper is extremely well designed and easy to read.
\n
\nA study that deals with the financial problems facing biographical historians is Carmichael (1991). This ALA Library History Roundtable describes the result of a survey sent to 102 library biographers to identify "the extent of their work in biography and to garner information regarding funding, sites visited in conducting research, and problems encountered." The financial problems of biographic historians do represent a different type of information-seeking they must perform.
\n
\nThere are some interesting articles on specific historical biographic sub-genres. Biographies of traditionally discounted minorities have generated much commentary in the last few years as requiring a different approach to sources than those of dominant cultural subjects. Taylor (2008) focuses an the way biographies of African-American women in the 19th century are "hidden" in traditional sources, and must be approached in a different way.This article may seem excessively skewed towards the theoretical. Nevertheless it does have a strong emphasis on the methodology of research; how to approach archives, and learning how to discover the right documents has bearing on our topic. Hudson (2009) discusses some of the problems a the author encountered when dealing with a historical figure whose life was rather risque, so that the task of uncovering what fits the eulogistic demands of "feminist biography" was more difficult. She found that the sources had either "dried up" in disapproval, or were be skewed in the direction of sensationalism. Notice what she considers the expected places for a biographer: "archives, public libraries, microfilm reading rooms, and the like." Therefore her other sources are coded as more unusual: "audience members at book signings, bed and breakfast owners, and the men and women who collected pieces of California\u2019s African American history."
\n
\n
\nI will also post this to the page.
\n
\nThere is also one interesting "biography of a biographer" in Rayward's (1991) study of early information professional Paul Otlet's work, in particular his theory of "documentation." Rayward looks at Otlet as a pioneer of biographical methodology, and discusses how his approaches are still relevant to biography today.","replyPages":[{"page":0,"digests":[{"id":"28549185","body":"Excellent! Thanks, Emily. I will keep going with it as soon I get home from work =)","dateCreated":"1287166916","smartDate":"Oct 15, 2010","userCreated":{"username":"laurenorso","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/laurenorso","imageUrl":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/pic\/1286135445\/laurenorso-lg.jpg"}},{"id":"28557833","body":"okay, i added two more (in red) to the main page. i think this covers all our annotations, yeah?","dateCreated":"1287176275","smartDate":"Oct 15, 2010","userCreated":{"username":"laurenorso","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/laurenorso","imageUrl":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/pic\/1286135445\/laurenorso-lg.jpg"}},{"id":"28560481","body":"I still was going to do a bunch of annotations (and integrate them into the lit review) on the "specialized" biographies--all the ones at the bottom of the page, on sports, film, music, etc.","dateCreated":"1287181137","smartDate":"Oct 15, 2010","userCreated":{"username":"efairey","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/efairey","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"}}],"more":0}]},{"id":"28536595","dateCreated":"1287155249","smartDate":"Oct 15, 2010","userCreated":{"username":"efairey","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/efairey","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"},"monitored":false,"locked":false,"links":{"self":"https:\/\/lis608.wikispaces.com\/share\/view\/28536595"},"dateDigested":1532092820,"startDate":null,"sharedType":"discussion","title":"Introduction to project","description":"The ancient art of biography was traditionally more "popular" than history because it was more personal. Plutarch's Lives of Great Men, and Suetonius' Caesars are among the first works which defined biography as a distinct prose genre. It used the same tools as history to make a portrait in gossip. The modern word "biography" now has many shades of meaning, from the psychological case study to the short web bio. It seems arbitrary to select "historical" biographers, except in that they are closest to history, the original source of biography. We cannot compare all the different brands of biography. Since this is beyond our scope,we have kept in mind a focused point of comparison: The difference in research methods between historical biographers and "specialty" biographers.
\n
\nThe word "speciality," being a generalization, requires explicating. For the purpose of this study and for our literary review, "specialty" denotes a modern, popular portrait with a commercial slant, whereas "historical" signifies a biography with the goal of scholarly advancement. The difference is not one of subject matter as much as tone, but some subjects do seem to lend themselves more to popular recension than historical analysis: Hollywood stars and sports heroes are two examples. On the other hand, biographies of people who played some major role in history tend to be "scholarly." The biography of Napoleon is scholarly, while Mick Jagger's is popular. This distinction between the seriousness of history and the trashy tone of biography is one if the original distinctions between the two genres.
\n
\nIn our literary review, we have striven to get a good general sample of historical and scholarly methodologies, as well as insights into popular biographic techniques.","replyPages":[{"page":0,"digests":[],"more":0}]},{"id":"28532121","dateCreated":"1287151985","smartDate":"Oct 15, 2010","userCreated":{"username":"efairey","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/efairey","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"},"monitored":false,"locked":false,"links":{"self":"https:\/\/lis608.wikispaces.com\/share\/view\/28532121"},"dateDigested":1532092820,"startDate":null,"sharedType":"discussion","title":"signed in as my boyfriend!","description":"Oops! I just wrote out of my significant other's wiki!","replyPages":[{"page":0,"digests":[],"more":0}]},{"id":"28530905","dateCreated":"1287151079","smartDate":"Oct 15, 2010","userCreated":{"username":"laurenorso","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/laurenorso","imageUrl":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/pic\/1286135445\/laurenorso-lg.jpg"},"monitored":false,"locked":false,"links":{"self":"https:\/\/lis608.wikispaces.com\/share\/view\/28530905"},"dateDigested":1532092821,"startDate":null,"sharedType":"discussion","title":"outline","description":"okay, i've gone through and tagged the annotations, and it seems like they're already split pretty evenly.
\n
\nEmily, would you write up yours? They all lean towards specialties, and I'll do the ones I've posted on the wiki, plus two more (Orbach and Duff) that I've just now done. (Mine lean academic\/archives).
\n
\nIf we can post this by Sunday night, I will string the parts together Monday, and post here for review so we can have the final done by Tuesday. Or, if you want, give me your e-mail address and I'll start a Google doc we can both edit.
\n
\nThoughts?","replyPages":[{"page":0,"digests":[],"more":0}]},{"id":"28465421","dateCreated":"1287066478","smartDate":"Oct 14, 2010","userCreated":{"username":"efairey","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/efairey","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"},"monitored":false,"locked":false,"links":{"self":"https:\/\/lis608.wikispaces.com\/share\/view\/28465421"},"dateDigested":1532092821,"startDate":null,"sharedType":"discussion","title":"Research Question","description":"Hi guys,
\nI had an idea for a research question--what about "Do biographers of different professional types use different research techniques?"
\nThat way we could contrast the feminist biography with the film bios, and the general techniques."","replyPages":[{"page":0,"digests":[{"id":"28474909","body":"Sure.
\n
\nAlexa mentioned a listserv she's on that might be useful for us, of adults who write nonfiction for children. It's possible we could also find enough people there to question whether people writing bios for adults use the same techniques as for children.","dateCreated":"1287074783","smartDate":"Oct 14, 2010","userCreated":{"username":"laurenorso","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/laurenorso","imageUrl":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/pic\/1286135445\/laurenorso-lg.jpg"}},{"id":"28477741","body":"Ok--but let's keep the question a bit general--one could fit the bios of kids in it--but let's have a question that encompasses the lit. rev. already done!","dateCreated":"1287077212","smartDate":"Oct 14, 2010","userCreated":{"username":"efairey","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/efairey","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"}},{"id":"28478165","body":"Maybe just, "Do speciality biographers use the same approaches as historical biographers?" That way, can use the research we've done on historians, as well as the kids, feminist, film (are there any film ones done yet?)","dateCreated":"1287077523","smartDate":"Oct 14, 2010","userCreated":{"username":"laurenorso","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/laurenorso","imageUrl":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/pic\/1286135445\/laurenorso-lg.jpg"}},{"id":"28531693","body":"I did do some film ones--I will keep working on annotating and essay.","dateCreated":"1287151737","smartDate":"Oct 15, 2010","userCreated":{"username":"jheyenga","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/jheyenga","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"}}],"more":0}]},{"id":"28284427","dateCreated":"1286823875","smartDate":"Oct 11, 2010","userCreated":{"username":"prattga","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/prattga","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"},"monitored":false,"locked":false,"links":{"self":"https:\/\/lis608.wikispaces.com\/share\/view\/28284427"},"dateDigested":1532092821,"startDate":null,"sharedType":"discussion","title":"Info from NYPL Librarian","description":"Hi,
\nAges ago I put in a request with NYPL to find some preliminary info about biographic historians... here's the question I asked and the answer I received just the other day. Hope it helps!!
\n
\nI am looking for scholarly articles about the search process of biographic historians (biographers who are historians, basically) and am having a hard time finding information about them. Do you have any recommendations?
\nThanks!!
\n
\nFirst, I am sorry for the long delay in responding to your e-mail. However, you are fortunate in that I am a reference librarian who has spent many, many hours working directly with a Pulitzer prize winning historical biographer. The direct answer to your question is, yes, the research process of biographic historians is - exactly - like that of historians. As these writers are biographers of historical figures their research revolves around searching for facts and information about 1) the subject of their biography; 2.) person(s) their subject had either important or intimate dealings with and 3) the historical background of the political, social, ethnic, military, religious, sociological and national, racial and gender issues of the society that the subject of the biography lived in. So, the research for a historical biography is essentially historical research.
\n
\nYou also ask for "scholarly articles about biographic historians (biographers who are historians.)"
\n
\nHere are some articles that might prove useful. Note that I have provided the author, journal and article title and then a link to the database EBSCOHost's Academic Search Premiere that the New York Public Library ("NYPL") subscribes to that you can access with an NYPL card and an NYPL PIN (four digits that you pick) The fastest way to obtain an NYPL card and PIN is by visiting any NYPL location (link to webpage, contact information and hours) here:
\n
\nhttp:\/\/www.nypl.org\/locations<\/a>
\n
\nEncounters with the Library: Understanding Experience Using the Life History Method.
\nAuthors:
\n Labaree, Robert V.
\nSource:
\n Library Trends; Summer2006, Vol. 55 Issue 1, p121-139, 19p
\n
\n Drawing on the author's own research, this article explores the use of life histories as method and the ways in which this research can contribute to new understandings about the experiential relationships between libraries and users. The article is divided into four parts. Part one defines the essential elements of a life history research study. Part two describes how to design a life history research study. Part three examines ethical, methodological, and interpretive issues related to issues of organizational insiderness and internal validity and textual authority. The author concludes by outlining the potential benefits and pitfalls of using life histories and discusses how life history research, and qualitative research in general, can enrich and broaden our understanding of library science theory and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
\n
\n http:\/\/web.ebscohost.com\/ehost\/detail?vid=5&hid=110&sid=f9e28568-a087-4ad1-ab24-d6c8197b905e%40sessionmgr113&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=aph&AN=22314647<\/a>
\n
\nYou may also wish to obtain this book that is available at the Mid-Manhattan Branch of the New York Public Library ("NYPL") located at 455 5th Avenue [at 40th Street], New York, NY 10016-0119, two blocks down and across 5th Avenue from the landmarked Stephen A. Schwarzman Building of the NYPL at 5th and 42nd Street:
\n
\nHamilton, Nigel.
\nBiography: a brief history \/ Nigel Hamilton.
\nCambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, c2007.
\n
\nSee: http:\/\/catalog.nypl.org\/record=b17680409~S1<\/a>
\n
\nAnd here is the webpage, contact information and hours of the Mid-Manhattan Branch:
\n
\nhttp:\/\/www.nypl.org\/locations\/mid-manhattan-library<\/a>
\n
\nAnd you may also wish to read some of the articles in: "Biography: an Interdisciplinary Quarterly" available in the database EBSCOHost from home with an NYPL card's barcode and an NYPL PIN here:
\n
\nhttp:\/\/web.ebscohost.com\/ehost\/search?vid=11&hid=10&sid=41e89e66-89ea-4d24-b603-2d535d4cab59%40sessionmgr12<\/a>
\n
\nAnd, if you wish, you may wish to examine this considerably older work on biographical method that is available in the General Research Division, located in Room 315, of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, 476 5th Avenue [at 42nd Street] a non-lending research library of the NYPL as reflected by this entry in the Catalog of the NYPL:
\n
\nA lesson in biography; or, how to write the life of one's friend, being an extract from the life of Dr. Pozz, in ten volumes, folio, written by James Bozz, Esq., by Alexander Chalmers, 1798.Edinburgh, Priv. print. for the Aungervyle Society, 1887.
\n
\nLocation .
\nSchwarzman Building (42nd Street & 5th Avenue) - Main Reading Room Call Number: A p.v.119
\n
\nhttp:\/\/catalog.nypl.org\/record=b14005864~S1<\/a>
\n
\nAnd here is the webpage, contact information and hours of the General Research Division:
\n
\nhttp:\/\/www.nypl.org\/locations\/schwarzman\/general-research-division<\/a>
\n
\nAnd, if you have further questions, you may wish to contact the reference librarians at the General Research Division -who have assisted many, many biographers of all kinds in all fields - at: grdref@nypl.org<\/a>
\n
\nGenevieve: once again, I am very sorry for the long delay in answering your question. However, I do wish you all the best in your research and writing on biographical historians!
\n
\nBest,
\n
\nMatt Boylan","replyPages":[{"page":0,"digests":[],"more":0}]},{"id":"28067741","dateCreated":"1286385230","smartDate":"Oct 6, 2010","userCreated":{"username":"caitlinarndt","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/caitlinarndt","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"},"monitored":false,"locked":false,"links":{"self":"https:\/\/lis608.wikispaces.com\/share\/view\/28067741"},"dateDigested":1532092821,"startDate":null,"sharedType":"discussion","title":"Just some articles","description":"I'll have the annotations to these posted to the main page this evening. (They are on my other comp!)
\n
\nTibbo, H.R. (2003). Primarily history in America: How U.S. historians search for primary materials at the dawn of the digital age. <i> American Archivist <\/i>, 66, 9-50. Full Text here: http:\/\/archivists.metapress.com\/content\/b120370l1g718n74\/<\/a>
\n
\nI think the above is related to the post from Lauren, but a different piece.
\n
\nOrbach, B.C. (1991). The view from the researcher's desk: Historians' perceptions of research and repositories. <i> American Archivist <\/i>, 54 (1), 28-43. On JSTOR: http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/40294400<\/a>
\n
\nDuff, W.M. & Johnson, C.A. (2002). Accidentally found on purpose: Information-seeking behavior of historians in archives. <i> The Library Quarterly <\/i>, 72 (4), 472-496. On JSTOR: http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/40039793<\/a>
\n
\n(The Duff article also has a lot of useful citations I have been working through!)","replyPages":[{"page":0,"digests":[{"id":"28427687","body":"Caitlin, do you have annotations for these yet? If not, Tibbo is done and we will do the other two.","dateCreated":"1287007636","smartDate":"Oct 13, 2010","userCreated":{"username":"efairey","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/efairey","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"}}],"more":0}]},{"id":"28060827","dateCreated":"1286379472","smartDate":"Oct 6, 2010","userCreated":{"username":"efairey","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/efairey","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"},"monitored":false,"locked":false,"links":{"self":"https:\/\/lis608.wikispaces.com\/share\/view\/28060827"},"dateDigested":1532092821,"startDate":null,"sharedType":"discussion","title":"7 articles and a book","description":"I will also reorganize and post on the general Wiki page...
\n
\n
\nAurell i Cardona, Jaume. (2006). Autobiographical texts as historiographical sources: Rereading fernand braudel and annie kriegel. Biography 29(3), 425-445. Retrieved September 21, 2010, from Project MUSE database.
\n
\nThis article engages autobiographical texts by French historians Fernand Braudel and Annie Kriegal as historiographical sources that help us comprehend the intersection between personal lives and scholarly production. This perspective serves as a reference for comprehending the way historians construct our access to the knowledge of the past to increase our understanding not only of history, but importantly, of the writing of history.
\nhttp:\/\/muse.jhu.edu.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu\/journals\/biography\/v029\/29.3aurell.html<\/a>
\n
\n
\nAudrey Levasseur. "Film and Video Self-Biographies." Biography 23.1 (2000): 176-192. Project MUSE. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation]. 21 Sep. 2010 <http:\/\/muse.jhu.edu\/<\/a>>.
\nBiography is a multimedia genre; it exists in oral, written, and audiovisual forms. Since the late 1960s, a sizable corpus of biographical films and videos has steadily grown, spurred by the popularity of television documentaries about celebrity subjects. The most familiar example of cinematic biography, what I term "traditional," typically celebrates the accomplishments of the subject in a chronological structure using photographic stills, film footage, and accounts of contemporaries or experts, with a narrator providing voice-over bridging commentary. Increasingly, directors are inserting sequences of dramatic reconstructions as well. Subgenres of cinematic biography include the biographical sketch, a brief account of a subject's life, focusing on factors that contributed to the subject's present state; self-biographies, hybrid forms combining traits of biography and autobiography; investigative biographies, works that examine the guilt or innocence of the subject, or attempt to get at the truth of some inquiry; biographical concert performances, a specialized form that captures a star's experiences during a concert tour; ethnographic films and videos, works that seek to document the culture of a specific geographic or cultural region; mixed or hybrid forms, newly evolving formats that combine the characteristics of two or more genres or subgenres, such as autobiography, investigative biography, and self-biography; biographical docudrama, biopics that use performers and recreations to simulate actual people and events; and moc docs, which are "documentary parodies, fake documentaries, and invented biographies and autobiographies" (Muhammad 36).
\nhttp:\/\/muse.jhu.edu.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu\/journals\/biography\/v023\/23.1levasseur.html<\/a>
\n
\n
\n Cynthia A. Huff. "Reading as Re-Vision: Approaches to Reading Manuscript Diaries." Biography 23.3 (2000): 504-523. Project MUSE. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation]. 24 Sep. 2010 <http:\/\/muse.jhu.edu\/<\/a>>.
\n When I approach manuscript diaries, I find myself cast in the same role as Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters. Both of the epigrams from Rich and Fetterley indicate the empathetic nuance we need to cultivate as readers of manuscript diaries. As part of a buried cultural tradition of women's writing, these diaries require us to engage them as friendly explorers, as students who leave behind as much as possible our former preconceptions and prejudices about the value and design of a text in favor of tentative, genuine inquiry. Fetterley cautions us that to learn how to read best, we must not adopt an antagonistic stance or assume that the reading tools we're accustomed to are the appropriate ones. Rather, we must proceed more cautiously, trying out new techniques, learning how to care for the text and its writer. I would like to suggest here that our position as readers of texts which are not part of the historically sanctioned mainstream tradition is a very complex one, which requires us to situate ourselves within the text as much as possible. Yet because we have even more difficulty as readers participating in the textual, historical, and personal design of manuscript diaries than we would, say, of a piece of fiction, we must simultaneously realize our limited position and try to thicken our understanding by engaging the inner and outer worlds of the diary...How writers of manuscript diaries construct themselves and their texts through their use of space, extra-textual material, voice, ideology, and historical and family positioning, among other factors, is complex, and calls for a variety of simultaneously close and extensive reading strategies. If we look at manuscript diaries primarily as written texts, we may well fail to see their complexity.
\n http:\/\/muse.jhu.edu.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu\/journals\/biography\/v023\/23.3huff.html<\/a>
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\nYoung-Bruehl, Elisabeth. (1998). Profile of a latency woman: Development for biographers. American Imago 55(2), 235-253. Retrieved September 21, 2010, from Project MUSE database.
\nSince Studies in Hysteria, psychoanalytic case studies and biographies have grown up together. They have been related like step-siblings, from the same father. And they both show his parenting influence, but not in the same way. Case writing has grown with psychoanalysis, becoming more and more sophisticated while incorporating--as Freud's own practice forecast--complex understandings of clinical perspectives, complex theoretical debates, and attention to the historical and social contexts of cases, the environments of diseases. But biography writing has never had a rich tradition of psychoanalytic reflection and methodological sophistication. Its practice still chiefly depends on "content analysis" as the Studies in Hysteria did; intricacy comparable to that of the Wolf Man case has largely eluded it.
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\nOn the model of Freud's case writing practice, which he applied to subjects like Leonardo to produce "pathography," his early followers wrote a rich library of case-like biography writing, an achievement that compelled the whole art of biography in the twentieth century toward psychoanalysis, if not directly or doctrinairely, then indirectly, as a matter of cultural osmosis or absorption of the psychoanalytic "climate of opinion.'" On the other hand, the genre influence did not flow so strongly in the other direction, and psychoanalysis itself has only recently become biographical--in two senses. First and most obviously, in the late 1950s the history of psychoanalysis began to be written as a biographical history, a history of clinicians and the depth psychological sources of their [End Page 235] theories and practices. Launched
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\n Kathleen Barry. (1990). The new historical syntheses: Women's biography. Journal of Women's History 1(3), 75-105. Retrieved August 17, 2010, from Project MUSE database.
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\n Lynn M. Hudson. (2009). Lies, secrets, and silences: Writing african american women\u2019s biography. Journal of Women's History 21(4), 138-140. Retrieved September 21, 2010, from Project MUSE database.
\n http:\/\/muse.jhu.edu.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu\/journals\/journal_of_womens_history\/v021\/21.4.hudson.html#f3<\/a>
\n As far as subjects go, I chose poorly. She was dead with no known descendents. Many of the relevant records burned in the 1906 blaze that engulfed San Francisco. And although she helped to finance one of the most significant rebellions in U.S. history\u2014John Brown\u2019s raid on Harpers Ferry\u2014few historians had ever heard of her. Some existing records, cited in footnotes, were privately owned and could not or would not be shared.1 What could I possibly \u201cknow\u201d about her given the sources to which I had access? What would a feminist biography of a woman accused of voodoo, inside trading, and murder look like? These questions haunted me and shaped my study of the nineteenth-century African American entrepreneur and abolitionist Mary Ellen Pleasant (1814\u20131904). My journey of discovery took me to expected sites: archives, public libraries, microfilm reading rooms, and the like. But I also learned about her from audience members at book signings, bed and breakfast owners, and the men and women who collected pieces of California\u2019s African American history. I quickly discovered that the public investment in Pleasant\u2019s past far exceeded the interest of academics. From the minute she landed in gold rush San Francisco, Pleasant created a sensation; the story goes that men in the city crowded the dock to bid top dollar for her services as a cook. To unravel her history, I encountered a different but no less determined crowd that gathered around her memory. Their interest in preserving her legacy as a feminist foremother, a voodoo queen, or a freedom fighter forced me to confront the differences between hagiography and critical feminist biography.
\n Rather than \u201coveremphasizing the recuperative and celebratory aspects of earlier women\u2019s history,\u201d feminist biography is now able to do just the opposite, probing the messier, less heroic aspects of women\u2019s history and answering difficult questions about race, gender, capital, and power.
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\n Ula Taylor, \u201cWomen in the Documents: Thoughts on Uncovering the Personal, Political, and Professional,\u201d Journal of Women\u2019s History 20, no. 1 (2008): 195.
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\n Penny Russell. (2009). Life\u2019s illusions: The \u201cart\u201d of critical biography. Journal of Women's History 21(4), 152-156. Retrieved September 21, 2010, from Project MUSE database.
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\n Writing historical biography, I am torn between competing impulses. I am fascinated by the \u201cchaos\u201d of everyday life and the \u201cgabble\u201d of the archive. Every letter, every scrap of diary, seems to open up new textual inventions and derivations, and the fascination of a \u201cself\u201d fashioned from fragments of cultural meaning. There I seek answers to my historical questions: about how my subject disturbed or consolidated inflections of gender within discourses of imperial exploration and colonization, sentiment, heroism, and honor; and about how she moved through a world shaped by her imagination and yet pressing upon her in unpredictable ways.13 Yet alongside my interest in the cultural constitution of subjectivity, I have questions about the character and the internal life of my subject. What drove her, in those moments when her behaviour seemed most aberrant, most inexplicable to her society and to ours? Was it love? Fear? Anger? Can we ever recover such emotions from the archives, whether as explanatory frameworks or as historically contingent sensibilities?14
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\nPerhaps we owe it to ourselves and our readers to try. Where biographers of a previous generation knowingly exploited the illusion of empathy, we need to reach cautiously towards imaginative understanding. We need to warm our words with a shadow of feelings once felt, with the conviction [End Page 154] that though it can only be a shadow, it makes reference to what our subject once took for granted as \u201creal.\u201d Perhaps, too, our finished biographical studies are richer when we allow them to reflect curiosity about humanity, and allow our readers some share in those precious moments of illicit, delicious reading pleasure in the archive. For although I strive to read my documentary fragments with the sensitivities, questions, and concepts of a historian, to deconstruct and contextualize their narrative structures and frames of reference and mistrustfully repudiate the siren song of the \u201clife myth\u201d\u2014still, I am occasionally guilty of reading diaries as if they were fictions and seeking in them the sort of stable, knowable subject that exists only in fiction. That phantom subject haunts my prose. She offends my sensibilities as a cultural historian, but as a writer I am in her debt. When I write, it is that imagined subject who lends assurance and authority to my words. It is she who brings my own words to life; only with her aid can I reach the imagination of the readers I hope to win for her.
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\nOates, S. B. (1986). Biography as high adventure: Life-writers speak on their art. Amherst: University of Massachusetts.
\nhttp:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=Eq4rd0_KnSoC&lpg=PP1&ots=IDdO8eye0D&dq=biography%20as%20high%20adventure&pg=PR4#v=onepage&q&f=false<\/a>","replyPages":[{"page":0,"digests":[],"more":0}]}],"more":true},"comments":[]},"http":{"code":200,"status":"OK"},"redirectUrl":null,"javascript":null,"notices":{"warning":[],"error":[],"info":[],"success":[]}}