Kind Of Biography Research Articles

Theodore Evergates, Marie of France, Countess of Champagne, 1145–1198. The Middle Ages Series. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019, ix, 180 pp., 2 maps, 5 fig.

We are all quite familiar with Marie of France, Countess of Champagne who was, as far as we can tell, the patron of Chrétien de Troyes, Gautier d’Arras, and probably also of Andreas Capellanus. From the historical perspective, we cannot tell too much about her, except that she appears to have ruled relatively independently and was a great supporter of the arts. Theodore Evergates now provides a kind of biography of this significant person, as far as this is possible on the basis of relatively scant documentation.

The Concept of Holistic Education and Its Implementation in the Indonesian Education System

This research has several objectives, the first is to know the meaning of holistic education according to Muchlas Samani. And the second is to know the implementation of holistic education on education system in Indonesia according to Muchlas Samani. This research is a historical research with a kind of biography. Data analysis used by researcher in this research is (1) review all data obtained from research about concept and practice of holistic education according to Muchlas Samani's thought, (2) to further reduce the data, (4) hereinafter the data collected and arranged according to the required category, (5) at the last stage, the researcher does the meaning of the research result obtained with the sentence which is easy to understand and still has relevance to the title, the purpose and the formulation of the existing problem. The results obtained from this research is holistic education according Muchlas Samani is a concept of education intact, not partial. What makes the Islamic values as the spirit and the subjects as a container. And has a goal to develop the potency possessed by learners in facing the futurenya. For implementation of holistic education in the education system in Indonesia according to Muchlas Samani is still lacking. This is because in the education system in Indonesia is still using the general curriculum.

Why Believe Me?: Narrative Authority in Biography

This life-writing enterprise has presented an unexpected paradox. A friend said it best. In her characteristic blunt way, after reading the closing sentences of the epilogue to my biography of Emilie Du Châtelet, she e-mailed: “I think you should cut them out; you undermine the authority of the whole book.” She was right. I closed by making a connection between the reasons for Du Châtelet’s unorthodox successes and women today: “Du Châtelet took her strength and resolve from her belief in reason, her certainty that passions can be made ‘to serve our happiness,’ and her willingness to be ‘susceptible’ to illusion.” Fine. But then I ended with a potentially damning statement as an historian: “It seems a formula written for me. Reason, passion, and illusion are the very stuff of biography.” As my friend saw it (and my editor, I should add), the more self-reflection, the more built-in feminist critique, the more decisions readers are asked to understand and choices they are expected to endorse, the less authority remains for the biographer. The history ceases to be that seamless narrative of a person’s life—birth, accomplishments, death, neatly and authoritatively told. But this was just the kind of biography I had been pleased to denounce as manipulative and dishonest. I realized in retrospect, however, that to “show my hand,” as a colleague described it, and still create a convincing picture of Du Châtelet, I had become even more manipulative than the simple accumulator of facts whose hidden choices led his engrossed and unsuspecting audience in lock step from one past minute to the next. As a feminist historian, I am committed to making the construction of my tales part of the story. This very honesty, paradoxically, led me to devices as a writer that now seem dishonest, “tricks of the trade,” as open to my feminist critique as the old supposedly “objective” history I routinely condemned. My epilogue shows the game I played. To keep the reader from rejecting my whole version of Du Châtelet’s life with my “truth-telling” last sentence, I wrote seven pages that established me as outside and above all previous biographers. I took the ultimate historian’s position, the god-like narrator. I then invited the reader to join me at my pinnacle of authority, to reason with me, to be a party to the enterprise. But it was a “set-up,” like asking students if they want the test on Tuesday or Wednesday. I give them no choice about the test itself. So I gave my readers no alternative here. I had structured the context, decided the outcome. I only made it appear as if they were participating in the creation of this history. I intended them

The Quest of the Historical Gospel: Mark, John, and the Origins of the Gospel Genre

Quest of Historical Gospel: Mark, John, and Origins of Gospel Genre, by Lawrence M. Wills. London/New York: Routledge, 1997. Pp. viii + 285. $75.00. exciting title of Lawrence Wills's book is compounded by cover notice assuring us of provocation, erudition, and fresh light on both canonical Gospels and Christian origins. Closer inspection reveals two interrelated but not interdependent theses (p. 21), first of which is that genre, for so long subject of such intense and inconclusive debate, finds its origin narratives of of dead hero, thesis that is argued by means of comparison between Mark, John, and Life of Aesop, described related to foundation of cult, for Wills the closest parallel to Mark and (pp. 177-78). second thesis is that careful analysis of Mark and John will reveal their mutual dependence on an narrative (p. 178). These two independent Gospels are used as lenses through which we can perceive refracted image of earlier tradition (p. 156). This is historical gospel for which Wills is questing. Of two main arguments, first one, concerning Life of Aesop, is better sustained. Other views of origins of genre are taken seriously and are discussed book's strongest chapter ( 1: The Gospel Genre), and thesis that Life of Aesop provides best example of hero cult paradigm for comparison with Gospels has value of novelty and inevitable interest that fresh analogy provokes. But end this thesis is implausible, not least because Wills finds himself drawing too strong line between Mark and John on one hand and Matthew and Luke on other, latter having moved away from genre of aretalogical biography to extent that they have become in effect something else, different kind of biography (p. 10). One cannot help being troubled by thesis which Life of Aesop is supposed to look more like Mark and John than do Matthew and Luke, which have, and have always been perceived having, such an intimate interrelationship with each other. Further, careful attention to Wills's useful English translation of Life of Aesop (Appendix, pp. 180-215) will confirm that handful of similarities between texts are far from striking. Isis's bestowal of speech and wit on sleeping Aesop (Life of Aesop 6-7, pp. 29-30) bears at best superficial resemblance to God's affirmation of Jesus' sonship Markan baptism, for example, and other comparisons between structure, literary technique, and function appear strained. Indeed, one fundamental difference between Aesop and Gospels receives scant attention: for whereas Mark and especially John presence of group of disciples to whom teaching is imparted is key, Aesop there are no followers at all. This is an important contrast, given claims that Mark, John, and Aesop are alike being foundation documents of cult. bulk of study, however, is taken up with comparison between Mark and John an attempt to trace common ancestor (chap. 3, pp. 51-155). Wills proceeds by means of a Synopsis of Mark and which each section is followed by comment supposedly demonstrating Mark and John's independent dependence on an earlier narrative. It is held that there are enough similarities between Mark and John to make this most plausible explanation, given (supposed) absense of demonstrably Markan redactional features John. But there are several problems with both conception and execution of thesis. …

A Tidy Collection of Filial Biographies

IF SONS DID NOT EXTOL, many a worthy father would sink into oblivion and forever go unsung. As filial biographers, however, sons customarily meet with intimidating scorn and derision. There is a generally accepted notion that consanguineous biography is fraught more with fealty and filial frailty than with disinterested depiction. The best way to disprove this false assumption is to muster meritorious biographies written by scions and compare them with representative biographies of the ‘blame and blemish’ variety. Sympathetic assessment always stands up stronger than ostensible objectivity, for writers of the ‘warts and all’ kind of biography lose track of virtues and nearly always become engrossed in the imperfections of their victims.

Explorers: Men and Motives

IN EVERY great discoverer there is a dual passion-the passion to see, the passion to report; and in the greatest this duality is fused into one-a passion to see and to report truly.' In these words J. C. Beaglehole has touched the wellspring of the explorer's spirit-that elusive, indefinable, but unconquerable compulsion to travel in unknown or little-known lands and bring back information in the form ofjournals, maps, photographs, and scientific reports. Thus from the very nature of the species, Homo explorans is likely to combine an adventurous career with a colorful personality and becomes at once a well-known figure and an apt subject for biography. Within the past few years more than forty biographies of explorers have been added to the library of the American Geographical Society, and a perusal of these books has inspired certain observations, from the geographer's point of view, regarding the nature of this particular kind of biography. Autobiographies have not been included, both because their number would have expanded the material beyond the limits of manageability and because of an inherent difference in character.