A Life in Biography

By Carl Rollyson

Talks and interviews about the life of biography as experienced by a biographer over forty years and fourteen biographies, dealing with subjects ranging from Sylvia Plath to William Faulkner, Marilyn ... more

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FAQs about A Life in Biography:

How many episodes does A Life in Biography have?

The podcast currently has 224 episodes available.

A Life in Biography episodes:

June 03, 2023 What memory tells us about biography and doesn’t.
A continuation of the previous podcast about the variables in understanding a writer and his world.
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44min
June 03, 2023 The nature of literary power, who holds it, and how the biographer should understand it.
Samuel R. Delany presents the writer as biographical subject and what it is the biographer needs to know about literary world and how reputations are made. But first a discussion of a movie, The Wife
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53min
May 23, 2023 The Power of the Living Biographical Subject v The Power of the Biographer
What does it mean to be powerful in the literary world, and in what sense should the biographer take it seriously?
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32min
May 14, 2023 Dylan Thomas and why biography matters, with a cameo performance by Marilyn Monroe
The correspondence with Samuel R. Delany continues, with many digressions, but all of them pertaining to biography and the work it can accomplish
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35min
May 07, 2023 Why a biographer would go ahead when the subject is fiercely resistant
The Sontag saga continues
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35min
April 30, 2023 Samuel R. Delany refuses to give up on Susan Sontag’s biographers
The seventh part of what is turning out to be a saga—listened to its entirety it amounts to a class on biography that you can take for free.
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47min
April 30, 2023 Seamus Heaney in America with biographer Ed O’Shea
A talk about Ed O’Shea’s recent book and what matters about Seamus Heaney’s experience in America
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35min
April 23, 2023 What Does It Mean to Know a Biographical Subject
An intervention by the New York Times and the story of a club of unauthorized biographers
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35min
April 15, 2023 Round 5 of The Biographer and His Critic
I continue the debate with Samuel R. Delany, reading from our correspondence and talking about it. In this episode, Sontag has her say.
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35min
April 08, 2023 Round 4: The Biographer and His Critic
Samuel R. Delany continues to point out the error of my ways, and I respond with my own letters and commentary.
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42min

FAQs about A Life in Biography:

How many episodes does A Life in Biography have?

The podcast currently has 224 episodes available.