Lives Lived: Person and Place in Newfoundland Biographical Writing

A panel in partnership with the Dictionary of Canadian Biography

The Panelists:
Jeff Webb (Department of History) “Rethinking the Individual: Biographies of Collaborative Circles”

and Vicki Hallett (Department of Gender Studies) “Life Narrative, People, and Place: Why I Didn’t Write a Biography of a Newfoundland Poet.”

Patrick Mannion, chair.

In partnership with the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, the Newfoundland Historical Society presents “Lives Lived: Person and Place in Newfoundland Biographical Writing”: a panel discussion on biography in Newfoundland and Labrador. Examining the past through the prism of the individual provides us with a unique perspective on our history and culture. Biography, though, is a tremendously varied sub-genre of historical writing, bringing together historians, literary scholars, folklorists, geographers, anthropologists, and others. How has biography contributed to our understanding of Newfoundland’s history? What are some of the key features that define biographical research? What sort of challenges does a focus on the individual present to the researcher, and how do interpretations of person and place contribute to our overall understanding of our past?