Margadant new biography of benjamin moore

          Biography of a way of doing history, Margadant proposes that “new biography implies first and foremost, not a totalizing theory but a method of analysis....

          Available From UC Press

          The New Biography

          Performing Femininity in Nineteenth-Century France
          The New Biography looks at the life stories of eight famous women in nineteenth-century France who became public figures even though they lived in a society that did not encourage women to speak out publicly.

          As the founding president of the Associated Country Women of the World (ACWW), Madge Robertson Watt (–) turned imperialism on its head.

        1. As the founding president of the Associated Country Women of the World (ACWW), Madge Robertson Watt (–) turned imperialism on its head.
        2. Labour biography is an exercise in shaping meaning from the unruly experience of a life immersed in activism.
        3. Biography of a way of doing history, Margadant proposes that “new biography implies first and foremost, not a totalizing theory but a method of analysis.
        4. New ideas and challenging perspectives.
        5. This dissertation examines the life of U.S. Supreme Court Justice James Moore.

          6. All of these women—activists, writers, and philosophers—became controversial figures who challenged conventional notions of femininity in their time. By showing how these women deliberately created their public lives, Jo Burr Margadant and her colleagues demonstrate the rich rewards of the new methods in biography.



          In her introduction Margadant gives a brilliant explanation of the new biography and how it fits into recent and current debates about the writing of history. Each essay that follows connects the lives of the women it discusses with major themes in French history.

          The famous activist Flora Tristan, the feminist journalist Marguerite Durand, and a leading advocate