Edited by John Wood Sweet (NHC Fellow, 2011–12) and Lisa A. Lindsay In Biography and the Black Atlantic, leading historians in the field of Atlantic studies examine the biographies and autobiographies of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century African-descended people and reflect on the opportunities and limitations these life stories present to studies of slavery and the African diaspora. … Continued
Edited by John Hope Franklin (Trustee; NHC Fellow, 1980–81; 1981–82) and August Meier For this, their first collaborative work, two of the leading authorities on black history in America have joined with other top scholars in the field to create an essential volume on the major achievements of fifteen twentieth-century black leaders — nationalists and … Continued
By Charles Caramello (NHC Fellow, 1984–85) Focusing on biographical portraiture, Charles Caramello argues that Henry James and Gertrude Stein performed biographical acts in two senses of the phrase: they wrote biography, but as a cover for autobiography. Constructing literary genealogies while creating original literary forms, they used their biographical portraits of precursors and contemporaries to … Continued
By William C. Dowling (NHC Fellow, 1979–80) In this deconstructionist interpretation of a major eighteenth-century work, William Dowling analyzes Boswell’s Life of Johnson as a paradigm of antithetical structure in narrative, and develops a grammar of discontinuity” for interpreting other texts as well.
By David Ellis (NHC Fellow, 1991–92) Popular though biography is, it has as yet received very little critical attention. What nearly all biographies offer is an understanding of their subjects and an explanation of their behaviour. In this book David Ellis, author of the acclaimed third volume of the Cambridge biography of D H Lawrence, … Continued
Edited by Elizabeth Anne Payne (NHC Fellow, 2008–09), Martha H. Swain, and Marjorie J. Spruill Volume 1 of Mississippi Women enriched our understanding of women's roles in the state's history through profiles of notable, though often neglected, individuals. Volume 2 explores the historical forces that have shaped women's lives in Mississippi. Covering an expanse of time from … Continued
Edited by Philip A. Stadter (NHC Fellow, 1989–90) These essays, by experts in the field from five countries, examine Plutarch's interpretative and artistic reshaping of his historical sources in representative lives. Diverse essays treat literary elements such as the parallelism which renders a pair of lives a unit or the themes which unify the lives. … Continued
Author, educational advocate, and entrepreneur David Bruce Smith recounts how his passion for reading biographies as a child instilled in him an enduring love of history and allowed him to overcome scholastic pressures he faced to deviate from his intellectual path. This exercise also connected him more strongly to a shared literary tradition within his … Continued
In elementary school, Kathryn Hill itched to move beyond the first shelf of the library books. When she finally reached the second shelf, a new world awaited her: biographies of historical figures. The lives of women such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Tubman, and Dorothea Dix led her to understand that history was all about … Continued
In this video, Joan Hinde Stewart recalls the first book she ever checked out of a library — a biography of Joan of Arc — a memory triggered by an experience in her sixties. She describes the fascination she felt about Joan of Arc from an early age and the conflict she felt about reading … Continued