Persona and the Performance of Identity Parallel Developments in the Biographical Historiography of Science and Gender, and the Related Uses of Self Narrative

Abstract

In this article Bosch explores the parallel development in scientific and gender biography to shed light on the relation between the individual and the collective, the self and society. In the history of science the relational/collective scientific self and the concept of the scientific persona (or mask) were developed in order to gain insight in the co-construction of the individual scientist and the collective scientific enterprise. In gender studies theatrical metaphors came into use to understand collective and relational aspects of (gender) identity formation. Doing or performing science as shown in the cases of Boyle and Harris, and doing or performing gender as shown in the cases of Lady Dilke and Marguerite Durand simultaneously entered the stage of biographical representations of scientists and subjects of feminist inquiries. They inform what can be called the ‘new biography’. This study of identity formation investigates self representations and self narrative in a variety of texts from autobiographies to travelogues and house hold accounts to scientific works. It interprets these texts not as unreliable subjective sources but as key texts crucial to comprehend the situated historical subject.