Call for Nominations: 2018 Biography Prize

The editors of Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa have announced their call for nominations for the 2018 Biography Prize, which is awarded to an UH Mānoa graduate student who demonstrates excellency in life writing.

The Biography Prize winner receives a monetary award and is invited to give a presentation in the Brown Bag Biography lecture series.

NOMINATION DEADLINE

Nominations–which should include the student’s name, contact information, and project title–are due to biograph@hawaii.edu by Monday, April 16.

Once nominations are received, the Center for Biographical Research will notify the student to arrange for submission of the project. Candidates may also nominate their own work for the award.

Some candidates will be working on their manuscripts well into April, and this will not be a problem so long as they are able to submit their work by the April 16 deadline.

CRITERIA FOR NOMINATION

  1. The candidate should be a PhD or MA student in any graduate department of the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa (or have graduated with an MA or PhD in December 2017).

  2. The submission can be work that is written for a class, that is a section of a thesis or dissertation, or that is the completed thesis or dissertation. If written for a class, it should be work completed between May 2017 and May 2018 (and not previously submitted for a Biography Prize).

The project should focus on or intersect with any aspect of life writing theory, history, or practice in any medium and discipline

The project should be at least 3,000 to 10,000 words in length: longer projects can be submitted in their entirety, with a particular chapter or section highlighted for consideration. The work should demonstrate knowledge or awareness of central debates and theorizing in the field and study of life writing.

See flyer below or visit CBR’s Facebook page for more details.

Biography Prize 2018 Announcement


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Spring 2018 Biography Brown Bag Series

The editors of Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly and directors of the Center for Biographical Research at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa have released their Spring 2018 schedule of Biography Brown Bags.

If you’re in Hawai’i, mark your calendars and BYOL (bring your own lunch) to these exciting discussions about life writing. Unless otherwise noted, the following brown bags are held from noon to 1:15 p.m. Thursdays in Kuykendall Room 409-A at UH Mānoa. Click here for visitor parking information.

February 1: “Themes in the Narratives by Escapees from the Holocaust in WWII Italy.”
Luciano Minerbi, Dept. of Urban and Regional Planning, UH-Mānoa

February 8: “Constructing Post-Soviet Stardom: Auteur and the state in the case of Renata Litvinova.” Olga Mukhortova, Languages and Literatures of Europe and the Americas, UH Mānoa

February 15: “Writing With Not About: Constellating Stories in Auto-ethnography.”
John Gagnon, Dept. of English, UH-Mānoa

February 22: “Masters of the Currents: Theater, Community, and Social Change.”
Leilani Chan and Ova Saopeng, TeAda Productions

March 1*: “Island Soldiers: Living with Militarization in Micronesia.” Pacific Island Student Panel co-organized by the Marianas Club, for Mes Chamoru and Nuclear Remembrance Day. Moderated by Craig Santos Perez.
*This session will be held in Kuykendall Room 410

March 8: “Hulahula and Learn Something: Expressing Culture and Science.” Kiana Frank, Pacific Biosciences Research Center, UH-Mānoa

March 15: “Selling It Like It Is: The Value of Narrative in Business and Policy.” Amanda Rothschild, Dept. of Urban and Regional Planning, UH-Mānoa

March 22: “An Introduction to the Jon Van Dyke Archive at the UHM Law Library.” Ellen-Rae Cachola, William S. Richardson School of Law, UH-Mānoa

April 5: “Losing Don Belton: Meditations on Friendship, Murder, and Race, and the Ethics of Life Writing.” Mara Miller, Visiting Scholar with the Center for Biographical Research and Dept. of English, UH-Mānoa

April 12: “Al Harrington: Reflections on Genealogy, Acting, and a Polynesian Revue.” Al Harrington, Educator, Actor, and Entertainer

April 19: “Filling the Void: Creating Playing Space for Today’s Pacific Islander.”
Kiki Rivera, Dept. of Theatre and Dance, UH-Mānoa

Apr 26*: “Exploring the Vā in the Oral Sharing of Poetry.” Grace Teuila Taylor, Visiting Writer in Residence, Dept. of English, UH-Mānoa
*This session will be held in Kuykendall Room 410

See flyer below or visit CBR’s Facebook page for more details.

Spring 2018 Biography Brown Bag Flyer


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Fall 2017 Biography Brown Bag Series

The editors of Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly and directors of the Center for Biographical Research at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa have announced their Fall 2017 schedule of Biography Brown Bags.

If you’re in Hawai’i, don’t miss this exciting line-up of speakers here to talk about life writing. Each event listed below is held from noon to 1:15 p.m. Thursdays in Kuykendall Room 409 at UH Mānoa. Bring your lunch and enjoy!

Sept. 14: Noenoe K. Silva, a contributor to The Hawaiian Journal of History, on ‘Elua Maka Kila: How Joseph Kānepu’u and Joseph Poepoe Contributed to the Life of ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i

Sept. 21: Daven Chang on Composing Mele for Community

Sept. 28: Kyle Kajihiro on Mehameha Wale No O Pu’uloa, I Ka Hele A Ka’ahupāhau: Lonely Was Pu’uloa when Ka’ahupāhau Went Away

Oct. 5: Virgie Chattergy on Pinay: Culture Bearers of the Filipino Diaspora

Oct. 12: Carla Manfredi on Little House in the Bush: Afterlives of Vailima

Oct. 19: Patricia Steinhoff on her UH Press book, Destiny: The Secret Operations of the Yodogō Exiles

Oct. 26: Otto Heim on Pacific Ghost Stories: John Kneubuhl and Oral History

Nov. 2: Sandra Bonura, on her UH Press book, Light in the Queen’s Garden: Ida May Pope, Pioneer for Hawai‘i’s Daughters, 1862–1914

Nov. 9: Lauren Nishimura on Hawaiian Ancestry: Positioning Indigeneity in the Na’i Aupuni Biographies

Nov. 16: Kim Compoc on American Tutelage Gone Awry: Antonio Taguba, Filipino Americanism, and the Critique of Torture

Nov. 30: Anna Feurstein on The Animal That Therefore I Am Not: The Politics of Animal (Auto)biography from Black Beauty to Cat Internet Videos

See flyer below or visit CBR’s Facebook page for more details.

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Biography Vol. 40 No. 1 (Winter 2017)

Jaya Daronde, Relationship, oil on canvas. From Caste Life Narratives, Visual Representation, and Protected Ignorance in this issue. Copyright and reproduced courtesy of the artist.

This special issue of Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly focuses on Caste and Life Narratives. From the guest editors:

Life narratives ranging from autobiographies and biographies to blogs and pictorial art have historically played a vital role in both the affirmation as well as interrogation of caste identities. However, serious study of life narratives in relationship to caste is still relatively underdeveloped. The scholarship on caste (or the varna-jati complex) is vast, as is the study of life narratives as a genre—it is the conjunction of the two that especially merits sustained scrutiny. The study of caste is animated by a Critical Caste Studies that takes its bearing from Dalit Studies, a lively area of scholarly endeavor in recent years, in order to explore diverse phenomena within the varna-jati complex. The scrutiny of life narratives in conjunction with caste promises to expand the scope of inquiry into life narratives by bringing new cultural contexts into the discussion and by enabling the formulation of new theoretical questions of genre. Such an investigation contributes to the study of caste by directing attention to fresh archives and by making available for analysis in powerful ways questions of identity. The critical work of studying caste in conjunction with life narratives is most pertinent with regard to India but includes the South Asian diaspora as well as other countries such as Japan.

— Editors’ Introduction: “My Birth Is My Fatal Accident”: Introduction to Caste and Life Narratives by S. Shankar and Charu Gupta

Literary Lives

Continue reading “Biography Vol. 40 No. 1 (Winter 2017)”