The Biographical Turn: Lives in History

Description

Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Contents Acknowledgements List of contributors Introduction Chapter 1: The biographical turn: Biography as critical method in the humanities and in society Setting the stage: theoretical implications of a biographical approach Elaborating the biographical turn Biography as a critical methodology in the humanities Notes Section 1: The biographical turn in the humanities Chapter 2: Biography as corrective Historians turning to biography Biographical mission Challenging misrepresentations Higher status Notes Chapter 3: The plurality of the past: Historical time and the rediscovery of biography Historical and individual time Historical plurality Biography and social interstices Notes Chapter 4: The life is never over: Biography as a microhistorical approach The methods of microhistory Is small beautiful? The individual as a research target The gap in the narrative Contextualisation The singularisation of history Biography as microhistorical approach Notes Chapter 5: Personalised history: On biofiction, source criticism and the critical value of biography Biography Studies and the subjective element in historiography History as ongoing process Overcoming limited access to sources The tragedy of the distinction between fiction and non-fiction Source criticism and the historian as source Notes Chapter 6: The life effect: Literature studies and the biographical perspective Notes Chapter 7: Biography as a concept of thought: On the premises of biographical research and narrative Biography Studies as a web of problems Biography as storytelling Biography as a concept of thought Notes Section 2: The biographical turn in fields of knowledge Chapter 8: Biographies as multipliers: The First World War as turning point in the lives of modernist artists Turning points Becoming an art theorist Unique or representative History in the head Notes Chapter 9: ‘Honest politics’: A biographical perspective on economic expertise as a political style Value-free economics in the post-war world Expertise politics in the Netherlands: reflections on style and substance Economic expertise and the end of ideology Economics and biography Conclusion Notes Chapter 10: Rediscovering agency in the Atlantic: A biographical approach linking entrepreneurial spirit and overseas companies Biography and microhistory in the Atlantic Social capital and the entrepreneurial spirit in the Atlantic world Agency in the Atlantic world Notes Chapter 11: Building bridges to past centuries: Religion and empathy in early modern biography Empathy and historical understanding Interpretation: interaction between perspectives Reyner van Dorth: text in context Agency: the connection between mentality and behaviour Notes Chapter 12: Palatable and unpalatable leaders: Apartheid and post-Apartheid Afrikaner biography A nation adrift A narrative of nationalist heroes History and biography New heroes, new histories The biographical turn Notes Section 3: The biographical turn in academia and society Chapter 13: Biography is not a selfie: Authorisation as the creeping transition from autobiography to biography Notes Chapter 14: What are we turning from? Research and ideology in biography and life writing The voice of the public – what Life Writing and biography researchers actually read Life Writing and biography: the theoretical echo boom Notes Chapter 15: Liberation from low dark space: Biography beside and beyond the academy Notes Chapter 16: From academic historian to popular biographer: Musings on the practical poetics of biography Notes Bibliography Index