This unit will seek to understand how the use of biography can and has rewritten existing histories. It seeks to understand the current rise in public interest in biography or life writing as well as the way in which the biographic mode is increasingly used as a key explicatory form in history and other humanist disciplines. We will briefly trace the history of the genre and then delve into examples of various kinds of biography, such as political lives, literary lives, indigenous lives, women's lives, and collective lives. It will consider how heated historical debates have reverberated through and been recast by the use of biography. We will also examine the problems of fiction and... -- Course Website
Instructor: Dr Kate Fullagar
Prerequisites: (12cp in MHIS or AHST or POL units at 300 level) or admission to MA in (History or Modern History) or PGDipArts in Modern History or PGCertArts in Modern History
