though parts of it could also be used at introductory levels and parts might be appropriate for graduate teaching. It is not a course syllabus, but a body of materials that can be used, in whole or in part, in a variety of courses in several disciplines. We hope that the Website will provide some teachers with course readings. But we will also have accomplished our purpose if the site simply helps others think about how they might pursue the same pedagogical goals using other texts and case studies. The keynote is flexibility.

Biographical writing has proven to be a remarkably durable and popular feature of modern cultures, and a highly versatile one. Its forms stretch from erudite biographies of literary figures and philosophers to mass market biographies of celebrities, sports personalities and politicians. It connects high and mass culture, and bridges gaps between various academic disciplines, in ways that have gone largely unnoticed, or at least unremarked upon. With this breadth and versatility in mind, the Website offers case studies, textual and other materials, and exercises that will develop students' awareness of, responsiveness to, and skepticism of biography and biographical narratives. Because biographical writing is central to so many disciplines, and to so many cultural forms , thinking about biography is also a way of thinking about history, literature, art, sociology, and psychology; about modes of explanation and interpretation; about kinds of evidence; about ethics; and about personal identity. Our cases and assignments can be used as part of courses on writing and composition, on historical writing, and in courses in literature, psychology, history, and other fields that include discussion of personal identity, life narrative, and the location and use of various kinds of evidence.

A brief biography of the project may be in order. It was funded by a grant from the Ahmanson Foundation to the National Humanities Center. We thank the Foundation for its generosity, and the Center for the ideal setting, the administrative competence, and the hospitality that make it such a great place to work. Though we did not realize it at the time, the project had its origins in a Biography Workshop involving several members of the Center's Class of 1998-99. The Workshop - a series of working lunches devoted to discussing our own work in progress - is a prime example of the rare kind of intellectual exchange and collegiality that the Center provides. If we had not been a part of it, we probably would not have undertaken this project, and we certainly would not have brought to it as clear a sense of purpose. We thank all the participants. In June of 2000 most of the other contributors to the Website shared their thoughts on biography at two-to-three hour consultations at the Center, and on the basis of those consultations they planned their own contributions. We thank them not only for the written products they have submitted, but also for the insights they gave us in lively and congenial conversations.

Thanks also to our Webmaster, Professor Akram Khater of the Department of History, North Carolina State University, Raleigh. The Website is testimony to his imagination (both visual and historical) as well as to his technical skills. He put it all together, and we are grateful that, dealing with people who can barely find their way into cyberspace, he was not as stern a taskmaster as he might have been.