Hans Renders - The Biographical Turn: Lives in History

The Biographical Turn showcases the latest research through which the field of biography is being explored. Fifteen leading scholars in the field present the biographical perspective as a scholarly research methodology, investigating the consequences of this bottom-up approach and illuminating its value for different disciplines.

While biography has been on the rise in academia since the 1980s, this volume highlights the theoretical implications of the biographical turn that is changing the humanities. Chapters cover subjects such as gender, religion, race, new media and microhistory, presenting biography as a research methodology suited not only for historians but also for explorations in areas including literature studies, sociology, economics and politics. By emphasising agency, the use of primary sources and the critical analysis of context and historiography, this book demonstrates how biography can function as a scholarly methodology for a wide range of topics and fields of research.

International in scope, The Biographical Turn emphasises that the individual can have a lasting impact on the past and that lives that are now forgotten can be as important for the historical narrative as the biographies of kings and presidents. It is a valuable resource for all students of biography, history and historical theory.

Hans Renders is Professor of History and the Director of the Biography Institute at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. His publications include Theoretical Discussions of Biography: Approaches from History, Microhistory, and Life Writing (2014). He is the cofounder of Biographers International Organization ( BIO ), the Vice-President of the Biography Society/la Socit de Biographie and a jury member for the Plutarch Award for best American biography.

Binne de Haan is a research staff member of the Biography Institute at the University of Groningen. His publications include Theoretical Discussions of Biography: Approaches from History, Microhistory, and Life Writing (2014), and an English translation of his PhD thesis Van Kroon tot Bastaard ( From Prince to Pauper: Biography and the Individual Perspective in Historiography ) is forthcoming.

Jonne Harmsma is a PhD researcher in the Biography Institute at the University of Groningen and is working on a biography of the Dutch Prime Minister and Central Bank President Jelle Zijlstra.

Edited by Hans Renders, Binne de Haan and Jonne Harmsma

First published 2017
by Routledge
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2017 Hans Renders, Binne de Haan and Jonne Harmsma

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Renders, Hans, editor. | Haan, Binne de, editor. | Harmsma, Jonne Title: The biographical turn : lives in history / edited by Hans Renders, Binne de Haan and Jonne Harmsma.

Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016032750| ISBN 9781138939707 (hardback: alk. paper) | ISBN 9781138939714 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781315469577 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Biography. | Biography as a literary form. | HistoryMethodology.

Classification: LCC CT21 .B4625 2016 | DDC 809/.93592dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016032750

ISBN: 978-1-138-93970-7 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-138-93971-4 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-46957-7 (ebk)

Typeset in Bembo

by diacriTech, Chennai

The editors would like to thank the Nicolaas Muleriusfonds Foundation for their generous support of this publication.

, Biography Is Not a Selfie: Authorisation as the Creeping Transition from Autobiography to Biography, by Hans Renders, was translated by Sybren Bonnema.

The author of , From Academic Historian to Popular Biographer: Musings on the Practical Poetics of Biography, by Debby Applegate, have been published before in: Leigh Eric Schmidt, Catherine Brekus, Nick Salvatore, Matthew Avery Sutton and Debby Applegate, Forum, Religion & American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 24, 2014, 135.

Debby Applegate was a Sterling Fellow at Yale University where she earned her PhD in American Studies and has taught at Wesleyan and Yale Universities. Her first book, The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher (Doubleday 2006), won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Biography. She is currently working on Madam: The Notorious Life and Times of Polly Adler (forthcoming from Doubleday).

Enny de Bruijn studied Dutch language and literature at Utrecht University, the Netherlands, and is currently working as journalist and author in the field of literature and history. She earned her PhD in 2012 with a biography of the seventeenth-century poet and theologian Jacob Revius. She is currently working on a popular history book about seventeenth century farmers mentalities and country life in the Guelders River area in the Netherlands.

Sjoerd van Faassen studied Dutch language and literature at Leiden University, the Netherlands, and was at great length Head of Collections at the Museum of Dutch Literature. He is currently a affiliated researcher at RKD Netherlands Institute for Art History. He published studies on Dutch literary history, especially on the history of cultural periodicals and publishers of the Interbellum. He is currently working on a biography about the Dutch artist, architect and theorist Theo van Doesburg (together with Hans Renders).

Binne de Haan is a research staff member of the Biography Institute of the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. He earned his PhD in 2015 with the dissertation Van kroon tot bastaard. Biografie en het individuele perspectief in de geschiedschrijving ( From Prince to Pauper: Biography and the Individual Perspective in Historiography ), in which he analysed the relationship between biography and historiography. He has edited the volumes Theoretical Discussions of Biography. Approaches from History, Microhistory, and Life Writing (with Hans Renders, 2014) and Microhistory and the Picaresque Novel: A First Exploration into Commensurable Perspectives (with Konstantin Mierau, 2014). He was a member of the founding committee of the Biography Society/la Socit de Biographie and serves as a board member. He is editor of Tijdschrift voor Biografie and biography critic for Geschiedenis Magazine .