Biography Workshop
School/Centre
Contacts
The Biography Workshop was established by the National Centre of Biography in response to requests by practitioners, students and readers of biography for a forum to discuss a range of methodological issues relating to biography. The group considers recent and long-standing questions about biography and offers a forum for biographers to share their research.
From February to November 2024 we are offering ten events that cover a wide variety of topics, from the life of Australian philanthropist Mab Grimwade, to that of sporting legend Tom Wills and the entwined lives of Bennelong and Arthur Phillip. Each workshop will be conducted by an esteemed scholar and will include a presentation followed by discussion time.
Sessions take place 11am to 12.30pm, usually on the last Thursday of the month (except 25 April). Participants can join either in person in seminar room 6.71, level 6, RSSS building, 146 Ellery Crescent, ANU, or online using this link: bit.ly/BioWorkshop2022
Upcoming events
The World of Mab Grimwade: Australian Women, Biography and Archives
11am–12.30pm 2 May 2024
Searching for the imprint of a woman’s life is a challenge repeatedly expressed by the biographers of women, and Mab Grimwade is no exception. Born into a...Past events
Bennelong & Phillip: A History Unravelled
28 Mar 2024
Kate Fullagar will discuss the background, research, writing, and unusual methodology of her third monograph, Bennelong & Phillip (Simon & Schuster,...Subjects of Time: Australian lives at the fin de siècle
29 Feb 2024
The fin de siècle c1890-1914 reflected a tension between movement and stasis, degeneration and progress. Historical actors caught between acting in the world...Alexander Zuzenko, the Communist International and the Workers’ Republic of Australia
30 Nov 2023
Abstract TBA about a week prior to the seminar.Kevin Windle: Alexander Zuzenko, the Communist International and the Workers’ Republic of Australia
30 Nov 2023
Alexander Zuzenko, a sailor and veteran of the 1905 Russian revolution, arrived in Australia in 1911 and embarked upon a career of industrial and political...Katherine Sanders: F.O.V. Acheson, Judge of New Zealand’s Native Land Court 1919-43
26 Oct 2023
F.O.V. Acheson, Judge of New Zealand’s Native Land Court 1919-43: Innovative Legal Judgments on Native Title and the Treaty of Waitangi F.O.V. Acheson, a...The Fin de Siècle Imagination in Australia, 1890-1914, using biographical microhistories to explore this era
28 Sep 2023
Abstract TBA about a week prior to the seminar.Philip Payton - D.H. Lawrence and Cornwall: In Search of Utopia
28 Sep 2023
This talk is based on my forthcoming biographical study D.H. Lawrence and Cornwall: In Search of Utopia, to be published shortly by University of Exeter Press...Alison Bashford: Writing a Family History of Evolution
24 Aug 2023
An Intimate History of Evolution (Allen Lane, 2022) is a history of evolutionary ideas told through one family, the Huxleys. It is, at core, a double biography...A Window of Life: Ruth Park, a Biography
27 Jul 2023
Abstract TBA about a week prior to the seminar.Monique Rooney - “Inky Comradeship:” Writing, Mutual Help and the Marriage of Ruth Park and D’Arcy Niland
27 Jul 2023
**PLEASE NOTE: THE WORKSHOP IS BEGINNING HALF AN HOUR EARLIER (10.30am AND ENDING AT NOON) DUE TO ANU INDUSTRIAL ACTION** In a 1939 letter addressed to...
