Introspection in Biography: The Biographer's Quest for Self-awareness

Most of the essays offered here are revised versions of papers first prepared for an invitational conference on "The Psychology of Biography," held in Chapel Hill, November 12-14, 1981. The conference, which was funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, brought together twelve biographers—including historians, literary scholars, political scientists, and psychoanalysts—each of whom had composed an introspective essay describing his experience of the biographical process. Each participant was invited to proceed in whatever manner seemed appropriate to him, but all were encouraged as well to address a number of questions that we regard as central to this inquiry: Why did I decide to write a biography, and how did I select a subject? How did I achieve insight into the internal life of my protagonist? In what ways did I put my personal stamp on the portrait I produced? As a result of protracted involvement with the subject, did the latter influence my life, and, if so, how? The contributors have responded to these questions in varying degrees, but they provide evidence enough to permit, for the first time, some systematic treatment of these and subsidiary questions. On the other hand, each paper is marked by an individual approach and style. Taken as a whole, these uncommonly intimate and self-revealing essays illuminate many aspects of the biographical enterprise. The collaborative character of the symposium deserves emphasis. It began with the request that the contributors-to-be all address a number of specific questions. It continued with the cooperation of a majority of the contributors with a psychoanalyst or clinical psychologist, as an aspect of the preparation of their papers. (More on this in a moment.) It went a step further at the conference itself, which served as a forum for an exchange of views so stimulating that it prompted the participants to undertake to revise their papers. Moreover, the conferees were so impressed by the frequent flashes of illumination, most often touched off by Dr. George Moraitis, that they asked him to compose an additional essay (an afterword) for this volume, to bring to a wider public the workings, pitfalls, and potentialities of the collaborative method.

Table of Contents:
Contributors, Preface, Introduction, 1. Psychological Dimensions of the Biographical Process, 2. Psychoanalysis and Biography, Collaborative Explorations of the Biographical Process with George Moraitis, 3. A Psychoanalyst's Journey into a Historian's World: An Experiment in Collaboration, 4. Returning to Nietzsche, 5. Henry Adams: An Intellectual Historian's Perspective Reconsidered, 6. A Psychoanalyst's Perspective on Henry Adams, 7. Biography and the Russian Intelligentsia, Repeating the Moraitis Method, 8. Newton and His Biographer, 9. My Life with G. V. Plekhanov, 10. A Second Look at Andrew Carnegie, Other Introspections on the Biographical Process, 11. Thoreau's Lives, Lebeaux's Lives, 12. A Stalin Biographer's Memoir, 13. T. E. Lawrence and the Psychology of Heroism, 14. A Biographical Inclination, 15. Notes on Researching James Forrestal, Afterword, 16. The Psychoanalyst's Role in the Biographer's Quest for Self-Awareness, 17. Subjectivity and Biography, Index

About the Author :
Samuel H. Baron, Alumni Distinguished Professor of History at the University of North Carolina, is the author of Plekhanov: The Father of Russian Marxism and Muscovite Russia: Collected Essays, and is coeditor of Windows on the Russian Past: Essays on Soviet Historiography since Stalin. Carl Pletsch, Assistant Professor of History at the University of North Carolina, has written articles on Freud and psychoanalysis, and A Psychoanalytic Study of Friedrich Nietzsche.