The Promise and Peril of Biography
- Date: 16 February 2023, 15:15–17:00
- Location: SCAS, Thunbergssalen, Linneanum, Thunbergsvägen 2, Uppsala
- Type: Lecture
- Lecturer: Henrik Berggren, Carina Burman, Fredrik Logevall, Anna Williams
- Web page
- Organiser: Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study (SCAS)
- Contact person: Ellen Werner
Henrik Berggren, Carina Burman, Fredrik Logevall and Anna Williams, will be part of a panel discussion on "The Promise and Peril of Biography".
Abstract:
Biography continues to be immensely popular with the reading public. Among academics, however, it is often viewed with suspicion, on account of its supposed tendency to view the subject in isolation from the larger forces, trends, currents, systems, and structures in which he or she operated. How, then, should we view the biographical enterprise? Are there rules of the genre? Pitfalls to be mindful of? A distinguished panel of authors will examine these and other questions.
About the panelists:
Historian, journalist and writer Henrik Berggren, PhD, is the author of Dag Hammarskjöld – Markings of His Life (2016) and Underbara dagar framför oss: En biografi över Olof Palme (2010) as well as several books on Swedish society and international relations during the 20th century, most recently Landet utanför, a series of books on Sweden and WWII (2018–2021).
Author and researcher (docent) in Literature Carina Burman has written more than 20 books, including biographies of Carl Michael Bellman (2019) and Fredrika Bremer (2001). Her fictional works often involve extensive biographical research, most recently in the novel God natt Madame (2021), based on the life of 18th-century noble woman Anna Charlotta von Stapelmohr.
Fredrik Logevall, Laurence D. Belfer Professor of International Affairs and Professor of History at Harvard University is the author of JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917–1956 (2020), the first part of a two-volume biography of John F. Kennedy. His Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam won the Pulitzer Prize for history in 2013.
Anna Williams is Professor of Literature at Uppsala University and the author of two literary biographies, Diktarhjärtat – Lotten von Kræmers litteraturliv (2022) and Från verklighetens stränder – Agnes von Krusenstjernas liv och diktning (2013). She is currently Chair of the literary society Samfundet De Nio.
Additional Info:
The panel discussion will also be available via Zoom. Pre-registration is required for the physical event. The number of seats is limited and seats will be distributed on a first come, first served basis. Registration is required by 9 February 2023 at the latest.