This episode’s guest is Dr Joanne Cormac, who is Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow at the University of Nottingham. Joanne’s research interests include the music of Franz Liszt, nineteenth-century music and culture, historiography, and biography. Her articles are published in the journal 19th-century music and The Musical Quarterly, and her books include Liszt and the Symphonic Poem by Cambridge University Press and 30-Second Classical Music by Ivy Press.

We spoke to Joanne about developments in the processes of life-writing since the nineteenth-century. Joanne also elaborated on the social functions of biographies and on how one ought to approach mediums of the like, including biopics and autobiographies.