Biofiction

Michael Lackey is Distinguished McKnight University Professor and Distinguished University Teaching Professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris. As a scholar of twentieth- and twenty-first-century intellectual, political, and literary history, he has authored and edited ten books, mostly about biofiction, including Truthful Fictions and Conversations with Biographical Novelists, which contain interviews with some of the world’s most famous biographical novelists. He has also guest-edited many special issues about biofiction for journals like a/b: Auto/Biography Studies, Éire-Ireland: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Irish Studies, Mississippi Quarterly, and American Book Review.

Introduction I. The Nineteenth Century Origins 1. The Art of Agential Living 2. Portraits of Whom? II. Literature, Cultural Critique, and Political Liberation 3. Biofiction as Social Critique 4. The Irish, the Unslave Trade, and the Decolonization of the Mind 5. The 1930s and the First Surge in Biofiction III. Literary Debates 6. The Assault on Biofiction 7. The William Styron Controversy 8. Postmodernism’s Historiographic Metafiction or Biofiction’s “Truth” Proposals? 9. John Edgar Wideman on the Ethics of Fictionalizing a Life in Biofiction IV. The Uncanny Power of Biofiction 10. Biofiction as Cultural Intervention: The Case of Sally Hemings 11. The 1990s: The Decade of Biofiction’s Official Legitimization and Dominance 12. The Transformative Powers of Biofiction for Students: A Case Study of David Ebershoff’s The Danish Girla

Acknowledgments

Introduction

I.

The Nineteenth Century Origins






The Art of Agential Living



Portraits of Whom?
Figure One

Figure Two

II.

Literature, Cultural Critique, and Political Liberation




Biofiction as Social Critique



The Irish, the Unslave Trade, and the Decolonization of the Mind



The 1930s and the First Surge in Biofiction
III.

Literary Debates




The Assault on Biofiction



The William Styron Controversy



Postmodernism’s Historiographic Metafiction or Biofiction’s "Truth" Proposals?



John Edgar Wideman on the Ethics of Fictionalizing a Life in Biofiction
IV.

The Uncanny Power of Biofiction




Biofiction as Cultural Intervention: The Case of Sally Hemings



The 1990s: The Decade of Biofiction’s Official Legitimization and Dominance



The Transformative Powers of Biofiction for Students: A Case Study of David Ebershoff’s The Danish Girl