Fear of Theory: Towards a New Theoretical Justification of Biography

Recent academic historiography has seen a profusion of theoretical perspectives on biography, both analytical and descriptive. Yet many biographers still fear ‘theory’ as antithetical to accessible narration of real lives.

This volume presents eighteen essays by more than a dozen scholars and practitioners from Australia, Belgium, Germany, Great Britain, Holland, Hungary, Iceland, and the United States who seek to banish such fear. Writing with candor, wide experience and familiarity with modern teaching, they examine the riches greeting the biographer willing to think more deeply about biography: its inner workings and rationale in a world still hungry for fact and truth.

Contributors are: Nigel Hamilton, Sigurdur Gylfi Magnusson, Emma McEwin, Melanie Nolan, Kerstin Maria Pahl, Eric Palmen, Hans Renders, Carl Rollyson, David T. Roth, Istvan M. Szijarto, Jeffrey Tyssens, and David Veltman.

See inside the book.