On April 10, 2003 The Center for the Humanites at the CUNY Graduate Center (365 Fifth Ave, New York, NY, 10016) presents:

"Writing Lives: The Past and Future of Biography"

Biography has been a popular way of thinking about the past from antiquity to the present, but it has not always been pretty. For every Agricola by Tacitus, Life of Johnson by Boswell, and Jefferson by Ken Burns, there are the tawdry stories of Suetonius, the hagiographies of dictators, and gossipy "investigations" on television. Biography is the quintessential interdisciplinary field. Filmmakers, novelists, curators, poets, and journalists all join historians and literary critics under the umbrella of biography. Focusing on Charles Darwin, Sappho, and Louis Armstrong and Jazz Biography, this conference explores the phenomenon of life-writing and the nature of its audience and the commonalities and differences across disciplines. The conference will run from 12:30 to 8:30 pm at the Graduate Center in the Segal and Proshansky auditoriums. Admission is free.

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