Lives and Biographies: Life-Writing and the Renaissance

Home » Course Search »
Level: 
Doctoral
CEU code: 
MS
CEU credits: 
2
Academic year: 
2009/2010
Semester: 
Winter
Start and end dates: 
4 Jan 2010 - 26 Mar 2010
Co-hosting Unit(s) [if applicable]: 
Department of History
Department of Medieval Studies
CEU Instructor(s): 
Marcell Sebők
Additional information: 
The main goal of the course is to familiarize students with both historiographical patterns, debates and methodological responses over them and in parallel to present the “Renaissance” notions of “individual” and practices during an age of revisited scholarship, education, and developing new networks. The course also serves as a set of preparatory discussions to a panel organized at the next Renaissance Society of America (RSA) Congress, and held in April 2010. The RSA Program Committee has accepted the panel titled “Lives and Biographies: Reflections on Life-stories in the Renaissance Republic of Letters”. Three papers will be presented which are as follows: "Destitute of fortune and endowed with learning" - life-paths of 14th and 15th-century Greek emigrants in Italy – by Réka Forrai The Image of Suleyman the Magnificent in Early Modern Hungarian Literary Production – by Ágnes Drosztmér Munitus carminis imperio: Humanist self–fashioning strategies at the council of Constance – by Zsuzsanna Kiséry
Required Readings Link: 
Mayer, Thomas F. – D. R. Woolf, eds. The Rhetorics of Life-Writing in Early Modern Europe. Forms of Biography from Cassandra Fedele to Louis XIV. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1995, Introduction, 1-37.
Parke, Catherine N., “Biography: An Overview of the Genre,” in her Biography. Writing Lives. New York and London: Routledge, 2002, 1-34.
Le Goff, Jacques, “The Whys and Ways of Writing a Biography: The Case of St. Louis,” Exemplaria 1 (1989): 207-23.
E.H. Gombrich. Aby Warburg. An Intellectual Biography. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1986.
Jardine, Lisa. Erasmus, Man of Letters. The Construction of Charisma in Print. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993.
Jardine, Lisa. Hostage to Fortune: the Troubled Life of Francis Bacon. London: Phoenix, 1999.
Jardine, Lisa. The Reputation of Sir Constantijn Huygens: Networker or Virtuoso? NIAS, 2008.
Learning Outcomes: 
The students should have a broader base of knowledge for using the comparative materials of historical research. The students should also be able integrate theory with practical case studies from this transitional period. All readings will be scanned and offered on-line on o:/mededit
Assessment : 
It is required to follow the course and participate in the discussions during classes with the help of the bi-weekly readings. Participation in class should show that the readings were addressed: 50%, presentation: 50%