Biographical Genre Research Articles

Center and Periphery in the Early Modern Spanish Empire: An Art-Historical Perspective on Colonial Latin America

ABSTRACT Art history’s center-periphery paradigm holds metropolitan centers as the originators of artistic models that the periphery copies. Accordingly, European artworks were the primary models for colonial Latin America’s artists who dutifully copied them. Scholarship that accounts for complex artistic negotiations characteristic of colonial societies complicates the long-held view of colonial Latin America as a replicative artistic periphery to Europe. It recognizes mutually constitutive relationships between different groups and artistic practices in the Spanish imperial order. This article highlights select examples of cross-cultural artistic interactions in colonial Mexico and argues that they often operated outside the European/Renaissance preoccupation with artistic originality/innovation as it is characterized in the artist biography genre of early modern Europe. Significantly, Christian global designs were the justification for Spanish power in the Americas, and colonial religious art has often been used to measure the success of that order. Accounting for the strategic copresence of European and Indigenous cosmologies and aesthetics in colonial visual culture is crucial to developing a more rounded and critical understanding of the Christian colonial order in Latin America. It also offers one alternative to the binary and largely unidirectional center-periphery model by highlighting the multidirectional flow of ideas, beliefs, and forms.

Intersectional Feminist Biography as Method

The genre of biography, typically associate with elite individuals, may seem like an unlikely approach for writing feminist history. And yet, in writing about exceptional women, many of them women of color, I have found that their lives reveal how structures of power functioned and how the marginalized responded. This essay is part of a PHR forum on the theme of “Personal Reflections on Feminist Historical Methods,” with additional essays by Y. Yvon Wang, Natalie Marine-Street, and Natalia Mehlman Petrzela. The forum is part of a larger PHR special issue, Feminist Histories.

O homem que muito foi: Pessoa segundo Zenith

For decades, the image of Fernando Pessoa has prevailed as “the man who never was”, whose creations would have so eclipsed the creator that consideration of his worldly experience would be superfluous. One of the recent works to focus on his life, Pessoa – A Biography, by Richard Zenith, represents a monumental effort to undo this image, conferring an unprecedented carnality to the Portuguese writer. This review seeks to present some of the main thrusts of this extensive volume, as well as to deepen the reflection on the biographical genre, no less subject to History than to fiction.

Writing Sacred Histories in Late Ottoman Egypt: Zaynab Fawwāz and Qadriyya Kāmil’s Descriptions of Early Islam

Abstract This article studies contrasting notions of historiography in Zaynab Fawwāz and Qadriyya Kāmil’s biographical dictionaries. It begins by offering an overview on these authors’ vitas and delves into the historiographical practices that concerned Ottoman intellectuals in the late nineteenth century. It analyses Fawwāz’s dictionary, al-Durr al-manthūr fī ṭabaqāt rabbāt al-khudūr (1894), which reveals a feminist understanding of Islam as situated within an Arab and pan-Ottoman environment as well as the large arch of Abrahamic monotheism. By highlighting specific figures over others, Fawwāz produces a historical narrative that transcends religious and sectarian divides. The article then introduces Kāmil’s Shahīrāt al-nisāʾ fī l-ʿālam al-islāmī (1924) which depicts a conceptually narrower Islam, shaped by the geo-political circumstances of the early twentieth century. The biographies of the Muslim foremothers Kāmil presents offer normative templates of female piety but are not completely subsumed by the category of gender either. Throughout, the article points to how both authors engage the rules of the biographical genre, arguing that the ways they adhere to or break with its tradition indicate a desire to create new forms of moral and communal belonging.

The Peculiarities of Hagiographic Literature of the late 20th – early 21st centuries

The article discusses the genre of hagiography and changes in the hagiographic composition of the lives of saints of the 20th century. It is indicated that a distinctive feature of the “new” hagiographies is not only the exact indication of the year and place of birth of the saint, but also the inclusion in the text of interrogation reports, excerpts from diaries, letters, and photographs too. The genre of biographies of Russian martyrs and confessors, canonized at the turn of the 20th–21st centuries, is analysed.

Формы PR-биографии в контексте жанровой системы

The aim of the research is to identify the main genre forms of the PR biography, their specificity in application, the features of interaction in communication processes and their effective utilization in PR activities. The paper examines the features of using fundamental forms of the PR biography such as summary biographies, story biographies, and narrative biographies, studying their properties in both theoretical and practical aspects. The scientific novelty lies in contributing to science through a comprehensive analysis of PR biographies as a tool for shaping public opinion and reputation management. This enriches the theoretical database of genres with new aspects of their structural-stylistic diversity and functionality. For the first time in the realm of Russian communicative culture, there has been an in-depth study of the relationships between various forms of PR biographies and their effectiveness in goal setting and achieving communicative tasks. Furthermore, the scientific novelty lies in the application of a comprehensive approach combining analytical, comparative, and empirical methods to assess the practical use of PR biographies, revealing new trends and techniques in creating this genre of texts not previously explored in scientific literature. This research emphasizes the importance of the PR biography genre in the context of communication strategies and public relations. The research findings show that PR biographies can take various forms and combine genre models, enhancing text perception efficiency through the use of established forms from the practice of public relations. In addition, mechanisms from other discourses, such as interviews, confessions, newspaper articles, and chronicles, are actively involved in PR biographies, highlighting the need for systematic text updating and maintenance to keep them current.

Porosity and Movement in Life Stories

Fueled by intellectual curiosity, literary discourse oscillates between factual and fictional narratives. Continually nourished by reality and imagination, it reflects a binary rhythm of representativeness and subjectivity. This work analyzes the biographical genre to explore the shift in rhetorical boundaries and representations in self-narratives. It examines various techniques writers use to reclaim the territory of intimate stories and lives. Infusing these narratives with meaning and unity aims to bridge the gap between the individual and the world. Awarding the Nobel Prize for Literature to feminist writer Annie Ernaux highlights the growing interest in the biographical genre. Ernaux, known for placing intimacy at the heart of her work, brings attention to this genre that often navigates through narratives marked by left-wing and 'politically correct' perspectives. Consequently, the genre emerges as a vital participant in the world's progress, establishing self-literature that withstands the test of time. A cross-study of various life stories — including intimate narratives, extremist views, self-portraits, memoirs, autobiographical novels, autofictions, and travel stories — enables us to understand the porosity and movement within this expansive genre. By presenting and juxtaposing different biographies, writers create a space for interaction, allowing the lives of others to permeate our understanding. Consequently, the biographical genre, serving as a mediating force, and the concept of otherness as mediation are reexamined within the fictional landscape of the human mind.
 
 Received: 10 January 2023 / Accepted: 29 February 2024 / Published: 6 March 2024

The Current Discourse of the New Biographism in the Contemporary Cinema

The article is devoted to the actual problems of the biographical genre in cinematography. This genre arose at the very beginning cinematography and developed in the 1920s. However, the first classic examples of it were created in England in the mid-1930s by Alexander Corda (in particular — «Rembrandt»).Soon, the totalitarian regimes of the Soviet Union, Italy and Germany began to actively use it with varying degrees of success. We can see the paradoxical flowerishing genre in the 1950s when it underwent final academisization and codification, but lost touch with real life (despite some successes, par example, the film «Taras Shevchenko» by Ihor Savchenko). The follow years demonstrate a variety of undividual options, both in the works of artists of «poetic cinema» («Dream» by Volodymyr Denysenko) and artists of late modernism («Dante`s Inferno» by Ken Russel, «Portrait of Rembrandt» by Jos Stelling). For the first time, artists of naïve direction (Pirosmani, Chontvari) become heroes of feature films. But the genre really changes already at the turn of the century. It draws attention to artists with disabilities, marginals, representatives of national and sexual minorities. A typical example is Frida Cahlo, a heroine at least three films. Finally, the image of female artist — a dissident (Alla Gorska in «Forbidden» by Roman Brovko) or a simple village woman (Katerina Bilokur in «Mad Woman» by Victor Vasylenko) appears in Ukrainian cinema. And even in the realm classics, the most popular characters remain artists with victim fate: Van Goht, Modigliani, Goya, and again Rembrandt. We have, of course, Taras Shevcenko.

The History by Shanbal as the Earliest Specimen of the Historiography of Hadramawt

The historiographical tradition of Hadramawt, the autonomous historical and cultural region of South Arabia, began its formation in the IX/XV century. The works of Hadramawt historiography appeared in great numbers following “The History of Hadramawt” by Ahmad bin ‘Abdullah Shanbal. “The History of Hadramawt» belongs to the biographical genre of narrative characterized by a concise form of reporting. It was under the inϐluence of Muslim law and, to a lesser extent, theology, that the history of various branches of knowledge was compiled as a collection of biographies of authoritative ϐigures. Thus, the genre of biography in Arab-Muslim historiography became the most enduring of all forms of historical expression. Shanbal through the prism of biographies of ulems, fakikhs, qadis, rulers and commanders gave us the basis for constructing the history of medieval Hadramawt. This article identiϐies features of the Hadramawt historiographic tradition based on an analysis of the text of Ahmad bin ‘Abdullah Shanbal’s work. In compiling his chronicle, Shanbal apparently relied on Ba Hasan, Ba Shurahbil, ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Khatib, Ba Makhrama, genealogies and family hagiologies of sayyids and mashayyih.

Tarantino in the Ottoman Empire: Glorious Viziers, Pulp Fiction, and Scrambled Narratives

I wanted to break up the narration, not to be a wise guy, a show guy, but to make the film dramatically better that way. . . . A novelist would think nothing about starting in the middle. And if characters in a novel go back and tell past things, it's not a flashback, it's just telling a story. I think movies should benefit from the novel's freedoms.— Quentin Tarantino1I wrote a prosopography twenty years ago. I published a biography two years ago. In the first case, I offered the collective biography of 282 servants of the late Ottoman period (1839–1909).2 In the second case, I presented the monograph of a grand vizier from the second half of the 18th century, Halil Hamid Pasha (1736–85).3 In the former, I delivered an academic work (stemming from a PhD dissertation) focused on the study of the careers of central and territorial administrators. In the latter, I recounted the rise and fall of the head of the Sublime Porte. A priori, these two books had nothing in common, except that they dealt with pashas. If I mention them together here, it is not to describe the personal evolution of my research. It is to shed some light on an observation that is regularly made, that is, of the inadequacies of the biographical genre in Ottoman history.4 It is to reflect on how to remedy this situation.

An overview of the research of the Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji) in South Korea over the past forty years (1971–2010)

The Shiji (史記 Records of the Grand Historian) is a pathbreaking monument of Chinese history. Its author Sima Qian 司馬遷 created a genre of biography centered around individuals that was continually used in dynastic histories from the Han dynasty onward. Sima Qian's composition of the Shiji not only respected historical facts and directly portrayed them as they occurred, but also paid attention to featuring polished language and beautiful writing. He organically integrated different styles of narrative, expressions, and reasoning and achieved a high degree of uniformity of thought and art, providing a model for later generations of literature and history. The Shiji was not only a pioneer in the genre of Chinese biographical history, but also had a far-reaching impact on later prose, fiction, and drama. It was also soon transmitted overseas and had a large effect on countries in the Chinese cultural sphere. With the introduction of the Shiji to Korea, Korean intellectuals particularly showed interest in and reverence for the work, and it was highly valued in the Korean academic world. By the mid-1960s, with the development of the national economy, all of South Korean society entered a new period of history that not only saw fundamental changes in the nation's appearance, but also saw academic and cultural affairs return to the right track, and at that time South Korean academics renewed their high degree of interest in learning about and researching Chinese academics and culture. It was on this foundation that South Korean intellectuals made great advances in translating and studying the Shiji and made positive contributions to its transmission, spread, and popularization. After briefly reviewing the transmission of the Shiji in Korea, this paper reviews the state of translation and study of the Shiji in South Korea from the nearly four decades from 1971 to 2010 and offers an objective evaluation of some shortcomings and gaps in this research.

„Azi este o zi bună pentru sinucigaşi.” Tematizarea morţii şi alte (in)decenţe confesive ale diaristului Eugen Simion

According to not a few diary researchers from both Eastern and Western Europe, the journal is, of all the genres of biography, the species most threatened to turn into a savoir mourir guide. This obstinate search of the author, obsessed with discovering the best ways to get used to the „daily death” (the true catalyst of writing, the main ordering/ director of meaning, and so on), can be discovered in any journal, constituting the specific (un)hidden note of the species – this is an idea that becomes central also in the studies of some of the most important Romanian thanatologists, fully convinced, such as Adela Toplean, for example, that ”any diary betrays (or «sweats») a subtle poetic of death”. In the strict order of appearances, nothing seems farther from the spirit of Eugen Simion’s Parisian Diary than the obsessive interrogation on the edge of mortality, with all the train of anxieties and fears attached. On the one hand, this book with explicit hexagonal pretext and dialogical stake (which I would rather inscribe in the category of the so-called travel writings, although its author stubbornly recommends it as a diary and problematizes its conventions) is visibly oriented in the direction of analysing the Gallic space and spirit, as they appear to a young Romanian lecturer, in a well-determined interval. On the other hand, the general tonality of the diarist and the colours of his descriptions – be they of spaces, landscapes or people – seem to be some of the brightest, most optimistic ones. Still, on a recent re-reading, I discovered numerous passages in which the diarist seems to thematize not only death, with its multiple facets and valences, but also other hypostases of radical otherness, from „physical and mental breakdown” through illness to „the foggy small creature of loneliness.” This paper focuses on a careful analysis, from a multidisciplinary perspective, of these „nagging phantasms” that make inner history (as recorded in the diary) stand at the edge between wonder and insecurity.

Biographies of Representatives of Librarianship in the Journal “Library”

The article is devoted to the study of the biographical direction of publications in the journal “Library” (“Red Librarian”, “Librarian”). The result of de visu browsing was the formation of a bibliographic list (863 entries — information about 800 persons related to library and bibliographic activities). Four periods in the development of the journal, which coincide with the changes in its name, were identified: “Librarian” (1910—1916); “Red Librarian” (1923—1941); “Librarian” (1946—1990); “Library” (1991 — present). On the basis of this periodization the analysis of the content of the researched subject is built (the article covers the first two periods). It is shown that the traditions of the biographical genre were laid from the very beginning of the journal’s publication, supported and developed throughout its history. A wide range of publications covering the life and activities of different representatives of librarianship — from doctors of science to ordinary rural librarians — is noted. The most popular heroes of publications and the most active authors are highlighted. The relevance of biographical research at present is emphasized.

Genre et vocation : La Vocation de Gustave Flaubert de René Dumesnil (1961)

If the concept of vocation perpetuates an idealizing vision of the regime of creation, it is partly due to the enduring popularity of the biographical genre, which continues to successfully legitimize the fascination inspired by artistic and literary exceptionality. Its dramatized narrative models a trajectory leading from an inherent potentiality towards a final consecration. Recently, however, critics have challenged this ideal representation and emphasised the exclusions made by some biographers anxious to safeguard male territories and to dismiss women from the artistic field. Taking René Dumesnil’s La Vocation de Gustave Flaubert as an example, this article highlights what the biography of this “national author” excludes or encompasses when it comes to evoking his vocation and why its biographemes are based on mechanisms undermining the input of women around him.

Bortolini’s Bellah and Bellah’s Bortolini: A Reading of an Ethical Biography

An ethical biography entails assessing four major elements, the narrated author, the narrating author, the text and the reader. In each instance of engagement, fidelity to the truth of the other is essential. It is at these interpretive moments that ethics becomes an issue in terms of interpretative awareness, faithfulness and the impact on the interpreters. Is it inevitable in an ethical biography that personal transformations will occur? Using theoretical work on the genre of biography by Frédéric Regard, the author illustrates Regard’s theories by applying Bortolini’s A Joyfully Serious Man (AJSM). To accomplish this, he takes a personal approach. Personal in how he gives evidence of Bortolini’s journey with the writing of AJSM. Personal, in how he appreciates Bortolini’s ability to write about Bellah’s life as grist for Bellah’s theoretical work. Personal in how his reading of the biography affected him. The author seeks to portray biography as a complex scholarly art that advances ideas and the human project itself.

THE EVOLUTION OF THE GENRE OF BIOGRAPHY IN ENGLISH LITERATURE: FROM HAGIOBIOGRAPHY TO GEOBIOGRAPHY

THE EVOLUTION OF THE GENRE OF BIOGRAPHY IN ENGLISH LITERATURE: FROM HAGIOBIOGRAPHY TO GEOBIOGRAPHY

Portrait Gallery of an Era: on the Pages of Bibliotekovedenie Journal (1952—2021)

The article is devoted to the study of the publications of biographical direction of the “Bibliotekovedenie” — Russian Journal of Library Science in 1952—2021. The most attention is paid to the analysis of the materials published in the 20th century. It reconstructs the history of the development of biographical materials on the pages of the periodical edition, defines the stages and characteristic features of each of them, presents the forms of biographical publications, reveals the circle of persons engaged in studying biographies of outstanding librarians, as well as the persons who became the objects of the authors’ and editors’ attention. The scientific discipline of humanitarian cycle, biography, is discussed. The authors cite the opinions of scholars (Yu.N. Stolyarov, V.S. Kreydenko, A.N. Vaneev, I.L. Belenkiy, G.G. Silnitskii, etc.) which emphasizes the necessity and significance of studying history through biographical studies. In the 21st century the library and book community has entered with a very developed direction of historical research on biography. While before 1970 there were sporadic publications on people of the library profession, by the end of the 20th century the number of biographical materials had increased significantly. Books and monographs dedicated to librarians appeared, name conferences began to be organized, autobiographical genre began to form, memoirs “in the first person” were published. Various factual and biographical materials have been collected in the journal.During the 15-year period of publication of the collection (bulletin) “Libraries of the USSR. Work Experience” (1952—1966) it published four articles of biographical genre: on the bibliographer A.P. Sokolov; on V.I. Lenin’s elder brother A.I. Ulyanov; the writer V.G. Korolenko and his library; the librarian A.A. Pokrovsky. During the six years (1967—1972), when the collection was published under the title “Libraries of the USSR”, nine articles dedicated to individual outstanding people were published in it. In 1973 the collection was transformed into the scientific and practical journal “Soviet Bibliotekovedenie” (Soviet Library Science). During the twenty years between 1973 and 1992, 128 biographical materials were published, and 96 persons were the subject of attention. Since 1993 the journal has been published under the title “Bibliotekovedenie” (Russian Journal of Library Science). From 1993 to 2000, 59 biographical materials were published in it. Articles of autobiographical genre appeared. For the first time, the interview genre was used. Between 2001 and 2021, 298 biographical materials were published in the journal, and more than 200 persons received attention. Of these, material on 165 persons appeared for the first time.Between 1952 and 2021, a total of over 280 authors published articles of biographical genre. The librarians about whom the greatest number of materials has been published: O.S. Chubarian, N.I. Tyulina, Yu.V. Grigoriev, N.S. Kartashov, K.I. Abramov, A.A. Pokrovsky, M.Ya. Dvorkina, N.A. Rubakin, Yu.N. Stolyarov, L.B. Khavkina, etc.The materials presented in the journal may serve as a basis for further research. The article may be useful for library professionals to intensify research activities in the field of library history through the study of biographies of prominent people.

Тарихтағы тұлғатану мәселесін зерттеудің әдіснамалық негізі (Сейдәзім Қадырбаевтың мысалында)

The methodological problems of the study of personality (personalistics) are one of the traditional and most fundamental problems in historical science. In the conditions of modern global civilization, it not only does not lose its significance, but, on the contrary, acquires special relevance and urgency. In this regard, the article highlights and characterizes the methodological approaches to the study of personality. The authors consider the methodological basis, specifics and scope of the biographical research method and characterize the main features of biographical research, their significance, advantages and limitations of using the biographical genre for historical knowledge. The article discusses the biography, social and political activities of one of the representatives of the Kazakh intelligentsia, a people's teacher and a professional lawyer, the author of the constitution, a prominent figure in the Alash Orda national movement in the early twentieth century — Kadyrbaev Seidazim.

Femmes fatales, saints, empowered women: Female biopics in Italian public television

Joining the current scholarly dialogue between biopic studies and gender/feminist/media studies, this work is meant to retrace the evolution of gender politics as expressed in the biographical genre which has played the role of the mainstay of domestic television drama since the origin of Italian broadcasting. Through a historical perspective that aims to track continuity and change over time, this work places a major focus on the 2000s, during which time women’s biographies experienced considerable growth on Italian television and more importantly began to replace traditional figures of saints and femmes fatales with female professionals in positions of leadership (journalists, politicians, entrepreneurs, scientists and artists). Based on the examination of several biopics and the close analysis of the most watched recent biopic about an ‘empowered woman’ (Luisa Spagnoli [2016]), this article seeks to explore whether the new wave of female biopics breaks crystallized generic conventions and foregrounds new representational strategies influenced by feminism or post-feminism.

Between Genre and Medium: Hilda Tablet , Henry Reed's Fictional Metabiography for Radio

Abstract: In the 1950s, Henry Reed wrote the seven-part series Hilda Tablet , a humorous radio play for the Third Programme, the BBC's cultural channel. The series deals with the fictional biographer Herbert Reeve—Henry Reed's alter ego—who writes a biography of the also fictional author Richard Shewin and later the composer Hilda Tablet. This article analyzes Hilda Tablet in the light of biography studies. It argues that the series "remediates" the genre of biography on radio, and uses techniques associated with fictional metabiography and mockbiography to highlight, question, and satirize genre and media conventions. Through a contextual and audionarratological analysis, it recovers Hilda Tablet for critical analysis, and reflects on the use of audio techniques for biographical construction and interpretation. It contributes to the study of biography in two ways: by focusing on the little-explored hybrid genre of the radio biography, and by paying close attention to aspects of the fictional metabiography and mockbiography.