Tag: Autobiography

Biography Vol. 41 No. 1 (Winter 2018)

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Photograph of Prince's star on the wall of the First Avenue nightclub in Minneapolis by Lizzy Shramko. Reproduced with permission.
Photograph of Prince’s star on the wall of the First Avenue nightclub in Minneapolis by Lizzy Shramko. Reproduced with permission.

Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly volume 41, number 1 (Winter 2018) arrives with a purple cover and includes a special section, On Prince: A Labor of Love, Loss, and Freedom, guest edited by Andreana Clay.

From the abstract:

With the death of Prince Rogers Nelson on April 21, 2016, many people’s lives were changed forever. In efforts both big and small, those of us left have tried to recall, feel deeply, and write down what his life and death meant to us individually and in community. This special feature explores the feelings of four writers—Andreana Clay, Greg Tate, Steven W. Thrasher, and Scott Poulson-Bryant—who have written about music, race, and Blackness and turn that gaze to Prince and his impact. Each paper was part of the American Studies Association special panel on Prince titled “Prince in Revue.” Here, as we did there, we draw upon a personal and political relationship to Prince in an effort to understand his impact on music, identity, and community.

Editor’s Note by John David Zuern

Lyric Acknowledgments

Special Section: On Prince

Introduction: On Prince: A Labor of Love, Loss, and Freedom by Andreana Clay

Prince and the Erotics of Democracy by Greg Tate

Obituarizing Black Maleness, Obituarizing Prince by Steven W. Thrasher

Prince, Queerness, and the Both/And of “Or” by Scott Poulson-Bryant

Keywords: Light Skin-ded Free Black Sex, Girlfriend by Andreana Clay

Continue reading “Biography Vol. 41 No. 1 (Winter 2018)”

Biography Vol. 40 No. 4 (Fall 2017)

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Biography‘s 2017 International Year in Review features life writing updates from México, South Africa, India, and more countries.

According to the editors, “The International Year in Review is a collection of short, site-specific essays by scholars from around the world on the year’s most influential publications in life writing in the countries, regions, and languages in which they specialize. This year’s International Year in Review includes entries from Australia, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Canada, China, Colombia, Curaçao, Finland, France, Iceland, India, Italy, Korea, México, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, South Africa, Spain, and the UK, along with two essays from the US, one on biography and one on memoir.”

The fourth issue in this quarterly volume also includes the Annual Bibliography of Works About Life Writing in 2016-2017, compiled by Sam Ikehara and Aiko Yamashiro.

Read more about the process of collecting this issue’s materials in the Editors’ Note.

Find the full text of the issue at Project MUSE

Sign up to receive e-mail alerts about Biography new issues from Project MUSE

BIO40-4C1croppedAbout the Journal

For over thirty years, Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly has explored the theoretical, generic, historical, and cultural dimensions of life-writing.

Subscriptions

Single issue sales and annual subscriptions for both individuals and institutions available here.

Submissions

Unsolicited manuscripts between 2,500 to 7,500 words are welcome. Email inquiries and editorial correspondence to biograph@hawaii.edu.

Call for Nominations: 2018 Biography Prize

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The editors of Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa have announced their call for nominations for the 2018 Biography Prize, which is awarded to an UH Mānoa graduate student who demonstrates excellency in life writing.

The Biography Prize winner receives a monetary award and is invited to give a presentation in the Brown Bag Biography lecture series.

NOMINATION DEADLINE

Nominations–which should include the student’s name, contact information, and project title–are due to biograph@hawaii.edu by Monday, April 16.

Once nominations are received, the Center for Biographical Research will notify the student to arrange for submission of the project. Candidates may also nominate their own work for the award.

Some candidates will be working on their manuscripts well into April, and this will not be a problem so long as they are able to submit their work by the April 16 deadline.

CRITERIA FOR NOMINATION

  1. The candidate should be a PhD or MA student in any graduate department of the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa (or have graduated with an MA or PhD in December 2017).

  2. The submission can be work that is written for a class, that is a section of a thesis or dissertation, or that is the completed thesis or dissertation. If written for a class, it should be work completed between May 2017 and May 2018 (and not previously submitted for a Biography Prize).

The project should focus on or intersect with any aspect of life writing theory, history, or practice in any medium and discipline

The project should be at least 3,000 to 10,000 words in length: longer projects can be submitted in their entirety, with a particular chapter or section highlighted for consideration. The work should demonstrate knowledge or awareness of central debates and theorizing in the field and study of life writing.

See flyer below or visit CBR’s Facebook page for more details.

Biography Prize 2018 Announcement

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Spring 2018 Biography Brown Bag Series

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The editors of Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly and directors of the Center for Biographical Research at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa have released their Spring 2018 schedule of Biography Brown Bags.

If you’re in Hawai’i, mark your calendars and BYOL (bring your own lunch) to these exciting discussions about life writing. Unless otherwise noted, the following brown bags are held from noon to 1:15 p.m. Thursdays in Kuykendall Room 409-A at UH Mānoa. Click here for visitor parking information.

February 1: “Themes in the Narratives by Escapees from the Holocaust in WWII Italy.”
Luciano Minerbi, Dept. of Urban and Regional Planning, UH-Mānoa

February 8: “Constructing Post-Soviet Stardom: Auteur and the state in the case of Renata Litvinova.” Olga Mukhortova, Languages and Literatures of Europe and the Americas, UH Mānoa

February 15: “Writing With Not About: Constellating Stories in Auto-ethnography.”
John Gagnon, Dept. of English, UH-Mānoa

February 22: “Masters of the Currents: Theater, Community, and Social Change.”
Leilani Chan and Ova Saopeng, TeAda Productions

March 1*: “Island Soldiers: Living with Militarization in Micronesia.” Pacific Island Student Panel co-organized by the Marianas Club, for Mes Chamoru and Nuclear Remembrance Day. Moderated by Craig Santos Perez.
*This session will be held in Kuykendall Room 410

March 8: “Hulahula and Learn Something: Expressing Culture and Science.” Kiana Frank, Pacific Biosciences Research Center, UH-Mānoa

March 15: “Selling It Like It Is: The Value of Narrative in Business and Policy.” Amanda Rothschild, Dept. of Urban and Regional Planning, UH-Mānoa

March 22: “An Introduction to the Jon Van Dyke Archive at the UHM Law Library.” Ellen-Rae Cachola, William S. Richardson School of Law, UH-Mānoa

April 5: “Losing Don Belton: Meditations on Friendship, Murder, and Race, and the Ethics of Life Writing.” Mara Miller, Visiting Scholar with the Center for Biographical Research and Dept. of English, UH-Mānoa

April 12: “Al Harrington: Reflections on Genealogy, Acting, and a Polynesian Revue.” Al Harrington, Educator, Actor, and Entertainer

April 19: “Filling the Void: Creating Playing Space for Today’s Pacific Islander.”
Kiki Rivera, Dept. of Theatre and Dance, UH-Mānoa

Apr 26*: “Exploring the Vā in the Oral Sharing of Poetry.” Grace Teuila Taylor, Visiting Writer in Residence, Dept. of English, UH-Mānoa
*This session will be held in Kuykendall Room 410

See flyer below or visit CBR’s Facebook page for more details.

Spring 2018 Biography Brown Bag Flyer

Read Biography archives at Project MUSE

Sign up to receive e-mail alerts about Biography new issues from Project MUSE

 

Biography wins 2017 Best Special Issue Award

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Cover of Biography volume 39, number 3
Image courtesy of the Center for Biographical Research at UH Mānoa

Please join us in congratulating the editors and contributors of Biography vol. 39, no. 3 on winning the Council of Editors of Learned Journal’s 2017 Best Special Issue Award!

The Council of Editors of Learned Journals (CELJ), an Allied Organization of the Modern Language Association, is the major national organization representing more than 450 editors of scholarly journals in all disciplines.

Biography vol. 39, no. 3 is the journal’s special issue on “Indigenous Conversations about Biography,” and it was guest edited by Alice Te Punga Somerville, Daniel Heath Justice, and Noelani Arista.

As detailed in the editors’ Introduction, the special issue started here in Mānoa Valley:

This is a conversation about Indigenous lives, the ways we understand them, the ways we represent them, and the responsibilities that come from doing this work in a good way. And this is just a beginning. We are honored to welcome you to this special issue of Biography, and to the Indigenous scholars, artists, and visionaries who come together in community on the topic of Indigenous biography. Some of this diverse group of Indigenous thinkers came together in person in Mānoa Valley on the Hawaiian island of O‘ahu, traveling from the Indigenous territories claimed by New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and the United States to take up the challenges, questions, concerns, and possibilities of representing Indigenous lives.

The complete table of contents and contributors for this issue may be viewed online at Project MUSE.

Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly is published by University of Hawai`i Press for the Center for Biographical Research (CBR) at UH Mānoa. The journal is coedited by Cynthia G. Franklin, Craig Howes, and John David Zuern. Managing editors for vol. 39 were Stanley Schab (emeritus) and Anjoli Roy. Read about CBR’s staff here.

Each year, Biography publishes a special issue that explores a topic of emerging critical interest, often centered around a CBR seminar. This year marks the second time Biography has won the CELJ Award for Best Special Issue, as coeditor Craig Howes explains:
Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly has actually received this award once before, for our “Posthuman Lives” issue. That was the first one resulting from our invited seminar in Honolulu process. Alice, Daniel, and Noelani made a number of innovations, including commissioning the two responses to each longer contribution, which created an articulate and powerful community of voices. Their decisions have also strongly influenced how we have conducted the three seminars (!) we have held since then–in Honolulu, and in London.

Contact us to order a single copy, subscribe online, or read the full-text of this issue at Project MUSE (institutional or individual electronic subscription required).

To receive email alerts for when new issues of Biography publish online, please click here to sign up at Project MUSE.

UHP-primarylogo-2cEstablished in 1947, the University of Hawai`i Press supports the mission of the university through the publication of books and journals of exceptional merit. The Press strives to advance knowledge through the dissemination of scholarship—new information, interpretations, methods of analysis—with a primary focus on Asian, Pacific, Hawaiian, Asian American, and global studies. It also serves the public interest by providing high-quality books, journals and resource materials of educational value on topics related to Hawai`i’s people, culture, and natural environment. Through its publications the Press seeks to stimulate public debate and educate both within and outside the classroom.

For more information on the University of  Hawai`i Press and our publications, visit www.uhpress.hawaii.edu.

Biography Vol. 40 No. 3 (Summer 2017)

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A 1934 advertisement for The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
A 1934 advertisement for The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. The Saturday Review of Literature, 13 Jan. 1934. From “On the Lecture Circuit with Gertrude Stein’s Portraits” by Linda Zygutis, in this issue.

Biography volume 40, number 3 (Summer 2017) includes the following announcement from co-editor John David Zuern:

For many years Biography‘s occasional feature “Sketches from Life” has made room for more personal essays by life writing scholars reflecting on practical, theoretical, and ethical issues related to their particular projects. We are rechristening this feature “First Person” to underscore the notion that scholars are the “first persons” in their academic writing and that scholarly projects are always, in one way or another, chapters in their authors’ life stories. In most cases, the autobiographical aspects of research are necessarily submerged in the final product, more or less invisible to the reader apart from sporadic appearances of the author’s directorial “I,” but sometimes the story of how an article or book came into being is as exciting and enlightening as the ideas the text has to offer. It is with this conviction that we are renewing our call for first-person memoirs of critical practice. Interested authors should query us about their plans before submitting manuscripts. (from Editor’s Note, vol. 40, no. 3)

Complete submission guidelines are available here.

In this Issue

Plus book reviews and contributors.

Find the full text of the issue at Project MUSE

Biography 40-3 C1About the Journal

For over thirty years, Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly has explored the theoretical, generic, historical, and cultural dimensions of life-writing.

Subscriptions

Single issue sales and annual subscriptions for both individuals and institutions available here.

Submissions

Unsolicited manuscripts between 2,500 to 7,500 words are welcome. Email inquiries and editorial correspondence to biograph@hawaii.edu.

Fall 2017 Biography Brown Bag Series

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The editors of Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly and directors of the Center for Biographical Research at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa have announced their Fall 2017 schedule of Biography Brown Bags.

If you’re in Hawai’i, don’t miss this exciting line-up of speakers here to talk about life writing. Each event listed below is held from noon to 1:15 p.m. Thursdays in Kuykendall Room 409 at UH Mānoa. Bring your lunch and enjoy!

Sept. 14: Noenoe K. Silva, a contributor to The Hawaiian Journal of History, on ‘Elua Maka Kila: How Joseph Kānepu’u and Joseph Poepoe Contributed to the Life of ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i

Sept. 21: Daven Chang on Composing Mele for Community

Sept. 28: Kyle Kajihiro on Mehameha Wale No O Pu’uloa, I Ka Hele A Ka’ahupāhau: Lonely Was Pu’uloa when Ka’ahupāhau Went Away

Oct. 5: Virgie Chattergy on Pinay: Culture Bearers of the Filipino Diaspora

Oct. 12: Carla Manfredi on Little House in the Bush: Afterlives of Vailima

Oct. 19: Patricia Steinhoff on her UH Press book, Destiny: The Secret Operations of the Yodogō Exiles

Oct. 26: Otto Heim on Pacific Ghost Stories: John Kneubuhl and Oral History

Nov. 2: Sandra Bonura, on her UH Press book, Light in the Queen’s Garden: Ida May Pope, Pioneer for Hawai‘i’s Daughters, 1862–1914

Nov. 9: Lauren Nishimura on Hawaiian Ancestry: Positioning Indigeneity in the Na’i Aupuni Biographies

Nov. 16: Kim Compoc on American Tutelage Gone Awry: Antonio Taguba, Filipino Americanism, and the Critique of Torture

Nov. 30: Anna Feurstein on The Animal That Therefore I Am Not: The Politics of Animal (Auto)biography from Black Beauty to Cat Internet Videos

See flyer below or visit CBR’s Facebook page for more details.

Read Biography archives at Project MUSE

Biography Vol. 40 No. 1 (Winter 2017)

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Jaya Daronde, Relationship, oil on canvas. From Caste Life Narratives, Visual Representation, and Protected Ignorance in this issue. Copyright and reproduced courtesy of the artist.

This special issue of Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly focuses on Caste and Life Narratives. From the guest editors:

Life narratives ranging from autobiographies and biographies to blogs and pictorial art have historically played a vital role in both the affirmation as well as interrogation of caste identities. However, serious study of life narratives in relationship to caste is still relatively underdeveloped. The scholarship on caste (or the varna-jati complex) is vast, as is the study of life narratives as a genre—it is the conjunction of the two that especially merits sustained scrutiny. The study of caste is animated by a Critical Caste Studies that takes its bearing from Dalit Studies, a lively area of scholarly endeavor in recent years, in order to explore diverse phenomena within the varna-jati complex. The scrutiny of life narratives in conjunction with caste promises to expand the scope of inquiry into life narratives by bringing new cultural contexts into the discussion and by enabling the formulation of new theoretical questions of genre. Such an investigation contributes to the study of caste by directing attention to fresh archives and by making available for analysis in powerful ways questions of identity. The critical work of studying caste in conjunction with life narratives is most pertinent with regard to India but includes the South Asian diaspora as well as other countries such as Japan.

— Editors’ Introduction: “My Birth Is My Fatal Accident”: Introduction to Caste and Life Narratives by S. Shankar and Charu Gupta

Literary Lives

Continue reading “Biography Vol. 40 No. 1 (Winter 2017)”

Biography Vol. 39 No. 4 (2016)

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This image of Stan Schab, managing editor of Biography from 1994—2016, accompanies the announcement for the Chancellor’s Award for Outstanding Service, which he received in 2007.

This quarter’s issue says farewell to retiring managing editor Stan Schab and welcomes new managing editor Anjoli Roy.

Read the special section for free online at Project MUSE: 

Editors’ Note (Free)

Tributes to Stan Schab (Free)

With words from editors and contributors Craig Howes, Cynthia G. Franklin, John David Zuern, Leigh Gilmore, Sidonie Smith, Gillian Whitlock, Aiko Yamashiro, and Anjoli Roy

Welcome to Anjoli Roy (free)

From Craig Howes, Cynthia G. Franklin, and  John David Zuern

Articles

  • Digression, Slavery, and Failing to Return in the Narrative of the Sufferings of Lewis Clarke
    by Michael A. Chaney
  • Making and Unmaking: Child-Soldier Memoirs and Human Rights Readers
    by Maureen Moynagh

International year in review

…We hope that the feature debuting in this issue, the International Year in Review, will help begin a process that will lead to more books, articles, essays, and dissertations from an even wider variety of languages appearing in our critical bibliography. (From Editors’ Note)

  • International Year in Review: Introduction
    by John David Zuern
  • Pictures at an Exhibition: The Year in Australia
    by Gillian Whitlock
  • Biography in Austria, a Selection: The Year in Austria
    by Wilhelm Hemecker and David Osterle
  • Public Lives as Personal Assets, the Trial of Biography: The Year in Brazil
    by Sergio da Silva Barcellos
  • Trust Reconciliation in Life Writing: The Year in Canada
    by Alana Bell
  • Nostalgia for Republican China: The Year in China
    by Chen Shen
  • Old Traditions and New Experiments: The Year in Finland

Plus more from the year in review and book reviews. Continue reading “Biography Vol. 39 No. 4 (2016)”

Biography Vol. 39 No. 3 (2016)

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From “Te Ao Hurihuri O Ngā Taonga Tuku Iho: The Evolving Worlds of Our Ancestral Treasures” in this issue. Drawings of Korokoro of Ngare Raumati by his brother Tuai (now in Birmingham University Special Collaborations CMS/ACC14 C2, and Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries GNZMMS 147).

This quarter’s special issue examines Indigenous Conversations about Biography with guest editors Alice Te Punga Somerville, Daniel Heath Justice, and Noelani Arista.

Editors’ Introduction

From “Kei Wareware”: Remembering Te Rauparaha in this issue. William Bambridge, Sketch of Te Rauparaha. Diary. Ref: QMS-0122-140A. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand.

This is a conversation about Indigenous lives, the ways we understand them, the ways we represent them, and the responsibilities that come from doing this work in a good way. And this is just a beginning. We are honored to welcome you to this special issue of Biography, and to the Indigenous scholars, artists, and visionaries who come together in community on the topic of Indigenous biography. Some of this diverse group of Indigenous thinkers came together in person in Mānoa Valley on the Hawaiian island of O‘ahu, traveling from the Indigenous territories claimed by New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and the United States to take up the challenges, questions, concerns, and possibilities of representing Indigenous lives.

Continue reading “Biography Vol. 39 No. 3 (2016)”

Biography Vol. 39 No. 2 (2016)

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Figure 6. From page 48 of Bhimayana: Experiences of Untouchability, by Srividya Natarajan and S. Anand; Art by Durgabai Vyam and Subhash Vyam. © Copyright 2011 and reproduced by permission of the authors.
From Radical Graphics: Martin Luther King, Jr., B. R. Ambedkar, and Comics Auto/Biography in this issue. Figure 6. From page 48 of Bhimayana: Experiences of Untouchability, by Srividya Natarajan and S. Anand; Art by Durgabai Vyam and Subhash Vyam. © Copyright 2011 and reproduced by permission of the authors.

This quarter’s Biography contains the following interdisciplinary scholarly works including Pramod K. Nayar’s article on ‘radical’ graphic novels:

From Radical Graphics: Martin Luther King, Jr., B. R. Ambedkar, and Comics Auto/Biography in this issue. Figure 2. From page 58 of King: A Comics Biography, by Ho Che Anderson. © Copyright 2010, and reproduced by courtesy of Fantagraphics.

In the midst of the memoir boom of the late twentieth century, a sub-genre
in a wholly new medium made its presence felt: the graphic memoir and auto/biography. Using Ho Che Anderson’s King (1993–2002, published in a single edition in 2010) about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and S. Anand and Srividya Natarajan’s Bhimayana (2011, with art by Durgabai Vyam and Subhash Vyam), about the Indian social reformer, maker of the Indian Constitution, and leader of the so-called “untouchables” (“lower-castes” in the Hindu social order, now called “Dalits”), Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar, I will argue that graphic auto/biography offers a new mode in which to talk about social issues like racism and caste-based oppression.

Continue reading “Biography Vol. 39 No. 2 (2016)”

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