History 771: Art & Techniques of Biography
Fall 2008, Tuesday 2:30 -5:00 pm
Synopsis:
Professional historians have long been torn about the practice of biography, but one glance at the best-seller list or bookstore shelves, or at cable TV, shows avidly the public today consumes this particular approach to historical subjects. This course will explore the art and craft of biography, in the past and toward the future. The course will examine the history of biography as a genre, and consider the unique challenges of writing about people who left tremendous amounts of documentation and have been the subjects of multiple studies, as well as others who have left little or no trace in traditional archival sources. A key component of the course will be a series of class periods in which we workshop biographical works in progress. Seminar papers may be original research in a biographical mode, or historiographical essays tracking the treatment of a single subject over time.
Syllabus: Not available
Course Website: Not available
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