Freshman Honors Seminar
Spring 2014
Professor Victoria Olsen
Office: rm 415, 411 Lafayette
Biography’s Many Lives
This course aims to introduce you to the variety of ways that lives have been or can
be represented. Beginning with classical biographies, we will read and analyze how
the genre has changed over the centuries as it reflects changes in how people live
and conceive of their lives. Texts will range across disciplines as well as formats.
Assignments will include oral reports on the readings as well as regular short
written assignments on biographical subjects, culminating in a longer research
project that draws on text, image, and other relevant media to describe and explain
a life of your choice.
Week One
Read excerpts from Plutarch’s Lives
Hand in Assignment #1: What do you think you know about biography? What are
the conventions and assumptions of the genre, from structure to content? 2 pp.
Week Two
Read excerpts from Boswell’s Johnson
Hand in Assignment #2: Based on the reading, who is Boswell and who is Johnson?
What are the sources for this biography and what are its priorities? 2 pp.
Week Three
Read Florence Nightingale section of Lytton Strachey’s Eminent Victorians
Hand in Assignment #3: Choose a biographical subject to research for your final
project. Survey the existing primary sources on the person as well as the existing
biographies. What draws you to this person as a subject? You may choose anyone
who is no longer living, but you will need to be able to find biographical sources.
Week Four
Read several sources on your subject
Hand in Assignment #4: prepare a 5-minute oral presentation to introduce your
subject to the rest of the class. Include a handout (TBD) and a visual aid.
Week Five
Read first half of Orlando by Virginia Woolf
Week Six
Read second half of Orlando
Hand in Assignment #5: what is the relationship between photo and text in
representing Orlando? 3-4 pp.
Week Seven
In class analysis of photographic portraits
Read several sources on your research subject
Hand in an outline or proposal for your final research project
Week Eight
Read Gay Talese’s profile of Frank Sinatra (1966) (online)
Hand in Assignment #6: how does the magazine profile differ from a conventional
biography? Compare Talese’s profile to another of your choice (see list of
suggestions). 2-3pp.
Week Nine
Read Lauren Redniss’s graphic biography of the Curies
Hand in Assignment #7: how does this biography confirm or subvert conventions of
the genre? 2-3 pp.
Week Ten
Reading TBD
Hand in first draft of 10 pp research paper
Week Eleven
Read excerpt of Rebecca Skloot’s Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. How does it
conceive of a “life”? How have new medical and digital technologies perhaps
changed the genre of biography?
Hand in feedback on peer paper
Week Twelve
Reading TBD
Hand in final research paper
Week Thirteen
Oral presentations on research projects: sign up to present an 8-minute version of
your research project. Include visual aids.
Week Fourteen
Oral presentations on research projects, continued.
Grading
Good attendance and completion of all assignments are required to pass the course.
Your final grade will be based on the seven short Assignments (5 points each for
35%), final paper (30%), oral presentation (25%), and class participation (10%).