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Biography across the Digitized Globe
Essays in Honour of Hans Renders
Series: - Biography Studies, Volume: 4
This volume is dedicated to Professor Hans Renders, founder of the Biography Institute of the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. Throughout his academic career, Renders witnessed a reflexive turn in historical research: biographers became more open about the limitations of their sources, and the subjective nature of their selection. Over this same period, however, the availability of digital sources has increased exponentially, which has profound implications for biographical research and the transnational framework used to approach the genre. Through its thirteen thought-provoking essays, this work seeks to make an intervention in Biography Studies by bringing the well-developed reflexive tradition to bear on the pressing challenge of proliferating digitized sources.
After publication of this volume, Gabriella Kelly-Davies, in her podcast Biographers in Conversation, held an interview with Hans Renders, David Veltman and Daniel Meister about the book. Listen to this episode.
After publication of this volume, Gabriella Kelly-Davies, in her podcast Biographers in Conversation, held an interview with Hans Renders, David Veltman and Daniel Meister about the book. Listen to this episode.
David Veltman, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of Groningen and he and works as collection specialist at the Special Collections department, University Library of Groningen, the Netherlands.
Daniel R. Meister, Ph.D., is an Adjunct Research Professor in the Department of History at St. Thomas University and an Archivist (Private Sector Records) at the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick, in Canada.
Daniel R. Meister, Ph.D., is an Adjunct Research Professor in the Department of History at St. Thomas University and an Archivist (Private Sector Records) at the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick, in Canada.
âBiography Across the Digitized Globe contains many excellent essays both nuanced and provocative. [â¦] [It] has been well-edited with a vivid portrait of Hans Renders in the Foreword and a concise Introduction that nicely sets the table. [â¦] This festschrift is itself a microhistory of debates that has preoccupied academia since the late 1960s. A professorial conflict between a traditional form of biography and a more diverse, socially committed approach to documenting individual lives mirrors larger, often fiercer ideological debates in both the social sciences and humanities.â
- D. L. LeMahieu, Lake Forest College in Lake Forest, Illinois, in Life Writing, 24 Jul 2025
The expertly edited âBiography Across the Digitized Globeâ is a kind of battle for recognition of biographers and their subjects that AI may tend to usurp but that cannot be silenced so long as biographers, like Mr. Renders, continue to pursue the genre on the frontlines of all media.
- Carl Rollyson, 4 April 2025 in The New York Sun
- D. L. LeMahieu, Lake Forest College in Lake Forest, Illinois, in Life Writing, 24 Jul 2025
The expertly edited âBiography Across the Digitized Globeâ is a kind of battle for recognition of biographers and their subjects that AI may tend to usurp but that cannot be silenced so long as biographers, like Mr. Renders, continue to pursue the genre on the frontlines of all media.
- Carl Rollyson, 4 April 2025 in The New York Sun
Contents
Foreword: a Celebration of Professor Hans Renders
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Turn Every Electronic Page? Biographers Confront the Digital Turn
âDavid Veltman and Daniel R. Meister
1 Microhistorical Approaches and Playing with the Scales of History: a Microbiography of Historiansâ Biographical Methods
âMelanie Nolan
2 Microhistory and Everyday Life Experience in a Biographical Writing: Representation in History
âSigurður Gylfi MagnuÌsson
3 The Scandalous AbbeÌ Rioust: the Multiple Careers of an Exiled (Ex-)Priest in the Era of Revolutions
âJeffrey Tyssens
4 Transnationally Informed Biography: Finding Abraham Kuyper in the Dissemination of a South African Christian-Nationalist
âJacques Pienaar
5 Twisting: Loss, Illness, and Dying in Words
What I Have Taken from Hans Renders
âMarlene Kadar
6 Facts and Signs of Life: Bits, Biographies, Life Writing, Biobits, and the Environment
âCraig Howes
7 âCreating Science from Oneâs Own Biographyâ: Networks and Clues in the Archival Afterlife of Helmuth Plessner
âDavid Veltman
8 Traces and Clues in a Fairytale: Research Based on a âWeirdâ Historical Source
âJana Wohlmuth MarkupovaÌ
9 The Golden Age Is Over: AI and the Future of Biography
âNigel Hamilton
10 Dissecting âA Funny Thingâ: Taste, Biography, and the Case of Nanne Tepper
âLodewijk Verduin
11 In Retrospective: the Concept of Subject Agency According to Virginia Woolfâs âThe New Biographyâ
âMaryam Thirriard
Conclusion: Biography across Borders: Broadening Biography Studies
âDaniel R. Meister
Index
Foreword: a Celebration of Professor Hans Renders
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Turn Every Electronic Page? Biographers Confront the Digital Turn
âDavid Veltman and Daniel R. Meister
Part 1: Theory â Transnational Microhistory
1 Microhistorical Approaches and Playing with the Scales of History: a Microbiography of Historiansâ Biographical Methods
âMelanie Nolan
2 Microhistory and Everyday Life Experience in a Biographical Writing: Representation in History
âSigurður Gylfi MagnuÌsson
3 The Scandalous AbbeÌ Rioust: the Multiple Careers of an Exiled (Ex-)Priest in the Era of Revolutions
âJeffrey Tyssens
4 Transnationally Informed Biography: Finding Abraham Kuyper in the Dissemination of a South African Christian-Nationalist
âJacques Pienaar
Part 2: Archives â Bits and Traces
5 Twisting: Loss, Illness, and Dying in Words
What I Have Taken from Hans Renders
âMarlene Kadar
6 Facts and Signs of Life: Bits, Biographies, Life Writing, Biobits, and the Environment
âCraig Howes
7 âCreating Science from Oneâs Own Biographyâ: Networks and Clues in the Archival Afterlife of Helmuth Plessner
âDavid Veltman
8 Traces and Clues in a Fairytale: Research Based on a âWeirdâ Historical Source
âJana Wohlmuth MarkupovaÌ
Part 3: Practice â Teaching and Writing Biography
9 The Golden Age Is Over: AI and the Future of Biography
âNigel Hamilton
10 Dissecting âA Funny Thingâ: Taste, Biography, and the Case of Nanne Tepper
âLodewijk Verduin
11 In Retrospective: the Concept of Subject Agency According to Virginia Woolfâs âThe New Biographyâ
âMaryam Thirriard
Conclusion: Biography across Borders: Broadening Biography Studies
âDaniel R. Meister
Index
Scholars who take a biographical approach in their research; teachers and (graduate) students of biography; and librarians and archivists.