Nigel Hamilton: Why does the academy shun biography?
[Nigel Hamilton, a biographer and historian, is the author of "Monty" and "JFK: Reckless Youth." His latest book is "Biography: A Brief History." He is a fellow of the McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies, UMass-Boston, where he is working on a multi-volume life of President Clinton. ]
Dr. Samuel Johnson, himself an accomplished biographer (and the subject of probably the most famous biography in the English language, Boswell's "Life of Johnson"), wrote that "no species of writing seems more worthy of cultivation than biography." No other form, he declared, can "more certainly enchain the heart by irresistible interest, or more widely diffuse instruction to every diversity of condition."
That was written in 1750. Since then biography has gone through an extraordinary evolution. Today it is pursued across all media, not just writing. It has become, in fact, the most popular area of nonfiction publishing and broadcasting. From People magazine to A&E's Biography channel, the urge to interview, record, investigate, and speculate about real individuals has become insatiable -- leading to heated debates about our right to privacy and the line separating fiction and nonfiction.
Yet, despite the fact that biography has moved to the forefront of the arts today, appearing in every medium from biopics to blogs, the academy still won't deign to touch it. There is no university in the continental United States that has a department of biography -- the only one that I know of is in Hawaii. College courses that do examine aspects of the genre, and explore its long history, are few and far between.
The history of biography precedes even Dr. Johnson's time by many thousands of years. From the moment men and women first began to record, in song, the sagas of their forebears, human society has demonstrated an insistent need both to record and interpret the lives of real people: to celebrate their achievements, but also to explore their personalities -- the better, perhaps, to know our own....
Biography is no longer what it was just a century ago, when serious English biographers hoped for a peerage or knighthood for lauding prime ministers. It is wide-ranging, sophisticated -- and contested. I scarcely know a single biographer who has not had to face a lawsuit (including Janet Malcolm -- and myself), so problematic has the business of biography become in our society, from copyright issues to libel and plagiarism. How could it be otherwise, when people's reputations are at stake?
Is it really right, then, that we should still refuse to teach the history, theory, and practice of biography, in all its media, at our colleges, given that real-life depiction has become so central to our Western way of life? By studying the nature, art, craft, agendas, genres, rules, ethics, research methods, and the different media approaches to biography, we can improve our appreciation of a significant aspect of our civilization -- and encourage better, more honest, more insightful, and more learned biographical works.
We could also fulfill Dr. Johnson's vision of modern biography. "If we owe regard to the memory of the dead," he wrote, "there is yet more respect to be paid to knowledge, to virtue, and to truth."
Read entire article at Boston Globe
Dr. Samuel Johnson, himself an accomplished biographer (and the subject of probably the most famous biography in the English language, Boswell's "Life of Johnson"), wrote that "no species of writing seems more worthy of cultivation than biography." No other form, he declared, can "more certainly enchain the heart by irresistible interest, or more widely diffuse instruction to every diversity of condition."
That was written in 1750. Since then biography has gone through an extraordinary evolution. Today it is pursued across all media, not just writing. It has become, in fact, the most popular area of nonfiction publishing and broadcasting. From People magazine to A&E's Biography channel, the urge to interview, record, investigate, and speculate about real individuals has become insatiable -- leading to heated debates about our right to privacy and the line separating fiction and nonfiction.
Yet, despite the fact that biography has moved to the forefront of the arts today, appearing in every medium from biopics to blogs, the academy still won't deign to touch it. There is no university in the continental United States that has a department of biography -- the only one that I know of is in Hawaii. College courses that do examine aspects of the genre, and explore its long history, are few and far between.
The history of biography precedes even Dr. Johnson's time by many thousands of years. From the moment men and women first began to record, in song, the sagas of their forebears, human society has demonstrated an insistent need both to record and interpret the lives of real people: to celebrate their achievements, but also to explore their personalities -- the better, perhaps, to know our own....
Biography is no longer what it was just a century ago, when serious English biographers hoped for a peerage or knighthood for lauding prime ministers. It is wide-ranging, sophisticated -- and contested. I scarcely know a single biographer who has not had to face a lawsuit (including Janet Malcolm -- and myself), so problematic has the business of biography become in our society, from copyright issues to libel and plagiarism. How could it be otherwise, when people's reputations are at stake?
Is it really right, then, that we should still refuse to teach the history, theory, and practice of biography, in all its media, at our colleges, given that real-life depiction has become so central to our Western way of life? By studying the nature, art, craft, agendas, genres, rules, ethics, research methods, and the different media approaches to biography, we can improve our appreciation of a significant aspect of our civilization -- and encourage better, more honest, more insightful, and more learned biographical works.
We could also fulfill Dr. Johnson's vision of modern biography. "If we owe regard to the memory of the dead," he wrote, "there is yet more respect to be paid to knowledge, to virtue, and to truth."