Biography Studies (Brill)

This academic series is devoted to biography as an object and a method of research, with a view to answering the current demand for a theorization of biography as an emerging field, at a crossroads between several disciplines in the humanities. The main goal of the series is to publish leading publications in the field of biography studies.

Biography is considered here as distinct from autobiography. The ‘Biography Studies’ series will not be a solely historical series, nor a series for literary theory, or for Life Writing, but a series for biography studies - genuinely inter- and multidisciplinary, providing the subject of biography its own deserved space. It will not publish (biographical) source publications or biographies, but publications that reflect on and investigate biography/biographies as a research methodology and with regard to its role in public spheres.

Intended audience

The series aims at scholars and students in the field of biography studies, history in general, cultural history, intellectual history, literature studies, arts, social sciences, sociology, psychology, political sciences, economics and philosophy. Since the last two decades, the field of biography studies and life writing is strongly emerging in the academic infrastructure: worldwide more than 60 centres devoted to the study of lives have been founded. This series therefore aims at an international audience, and this is feasible due to the internationally leading role of the Biography Institute.

Format

In the series monographs will be alternated with edited volumes. The aim is to publish at least one volume per year, to be published by Brill Publishers (Boston-Leiden). Next to a hardcover edition, also paperback (student price) and e-book editions of the volumes will be published.

Editorial Board

• Dr. Jana Wohlmuth Markupová (Charles University, Prague)

• Prof. Hans Renders (University of Groningen, the Netherlands)

• Dr. David Veltman (University of Groningen, the Netherlands)

Advisory Board

• Dr. Nigel Hamilton (University of Massachusetts Boston, United States)
• Prof. Sigurður Gylfi Magnússon (University of Iceland)

• Dr. Lindie Koorts (University of the Free State, South-Africa)

Fourth volume

In Feburary 2025 David Veltman and Daniel R. Meister (University of New Brunswick, Canada) published a festschrift in honor of our founding director, professor Hans Renders. Renders embodies the international spirit of biography both through his own research as a biographer as well as his unparalleled leadership in the global community of biographers. In keeping with his international focus, Veltman and Meister asked 13 biographers from around the world to reflect on the dual challenges of the proliferation of digitized sources and increasingly international, transnational, and cosmopolitan lives.

The essays that were written as a response to this call are now published under the title of Biography across the Digitized Globe. It includes pieces by renowned figures in the field, such as Richard Holmes and Nigel Hamilton, and by emerging scholars such as Jacques Pienaar and Lodewijk Verduin, both working on a biography as PhD students. Each contribution answers the call in different ways, but all in some way draw upon the theoretical foundation that Renders has established under biography as an academic discipline. Each also echoes his lifelong urge for question-driven research into biography, with ample reference to the source material that supports a given hypothesis. Taken as a whole, the volume forces us to ask: if the digital turn has brought us a world of transnational, interlinked research data, has it also ushered in a new kind of biography? And if so, what is its nature?

Third volume

In December 2021 Hans Renders and David Veltman published the volume Fear of Theory. Towards a New Theoretical Justification of Biography. The book is the third part of the series Biography Studies, and consists of 18 contributions by Nigel Hamilton, Sigurður Gylfi Magnússon, Emma McEwin, Melanie Nolan, Kerstin Maria Pahl, Eric Palmen, Hans Renders, Carl Rollyson, David T. Roth, István M. Szijártó, Jeffrey Tyssens en David Veltman. The foreword was written by Guðni Thorlacius Jóhannesson, the current president of Iceland.

David Veltman and Kerstin Maria Pahl were interviewed about this volume in the podcast A Life in Biography.

Second volume

In August 2020 the publication Profiles in Power. Personality, Persona and the U.S. President was published as the second volume in the series Biography Studies. The book was edited by Jelte Olthof and Maarten Zwiers, both working at the department of American Studies, University of Groningen. A review by Tizoc Chavez appeared on H-Biography.

First volume

The edited volume Different Lives. Global Perspectives on Biography in Public Cultures and Societies was published in June 2020 as the first volume in the new series Biography Studies. The volume was edited by Hans Renders and David Veltman.