Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
List of contributors
Introduction
1 The Biographical Turn: Biography as Critical Method in the Humanities and in Society
Section 1: The Biographical Turn in the Humanities
2 Biography as Corrective
3 The Plurality of the Past: Historical Time and the Rediscovery of Biography
4 The Life Is Never Over: Biography as a Microhistorical Approach
5 Personalized History: Biofiction, Source Criticism and the Topicality of Biography
6 The Life Effect: Literature Studies and the Biographical Perspective
7 Biography as a Concept of Thought: On the Premises of Biographical Research and Narrative
Section 2: The Biographical Turn in Fields of Knowledge
8 Biographies as Multipliers: The First World War as Turning Point in the Lives of Modernist Artists
9 ‘Honest Politics’: A Biographical Perspective on Economic Expertise as a Political Style
10 Rediscovering Agency in the Atlantic: A Biographical Approach Linking Entrepreneurial Spirit and Overseas Companies
11 Building Bridges to Past Centuries: Religion and Empathy in Early Modern Biography
12 Palatable and Unpalatable Leaders: Apartheid and Post-Apartheid Afrikaner Biography
Section 3: The Biographical Turn in Academia and Society
13 Biography Is Not A Selfie: Authorization as the Creeping Transition from Autobiography to Biography
14 What Are We Turning From? Research and Ideology in Biography and Life Writing
15 Liberation From Low Dark Space: Biography Beside and Beyond the Academy
16 From Academic Historian to Popular Biographer: Musings on the Practical Poetics of Biography
Bibliography
Index