Abstract

In what ways does life writing explore relational selfhood? How do auto/biographies, diaries, letters, and portraits represent inter-personal as well as personal experience? In shaping the account of a life, what role is played by the relationships between the subject and his/her family, peers, religious and political movements, or intellectual discourses? How does the text give form to the relationship between biographer, subject, and imagined reader? What records of collective life do we have and what critical methods can we adopt to challenge the individualistic tendency that has prevailed in traditional approaches to auto/biography? The papers in this volume emerged from a conference called ‘Lives in Relation’ which was held at the University of Lincoln, UK, in 2009, and which sought to address the issues above, by bringing together contributions from the humanities disciplines on life writing in its various forms.