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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Biography in the new millennium: some considerations |
Author: | Viljoen, Shaun |
Year: | 2005 |
Periodical: | The English Academy Review |
Volume: | 22 |
Pages: | 65-76 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | South Africa |
Subjects: | biography autobiography |
External link: | https://doi.org/10.1080/10131750485310081 |
Abstract: | The author examines the status of biography in contemporary culture, the received traditions of constructing lives, global and local socioeconomic contexts, and aspects of subject and form in biography in South Africa. First dealing with the biographical genre in general, he shows how socioeconomic imperatives reinforce the power and status of biography and looks at the implications of globalization for analysing and creating biography. He also pays attention to biography as reification of the individual. Next, he turns to the 'consumption and production' of biography in South Africa, placing it in the context of the country's persisting old economic disparities. He discusses biographies and autobiographies of South African political and civic leaders as well as biographies of South African English and Afrikaans writers. He also briefly touches upon South African biography/autobiography in oral form. Bibliogr., ref. [ASC Leiden abstract] |