Writing Historical Biography

Catalog description

This seminar will explore the writing of biography and narrative history. We will study the different techniques of writing for popular and for scholarly audiences. We will also address how biography and narrative writing can distort history and why it has, at times, been out of favor among historians. Each student will write a biographical 4,000-word study of a chosen subject using New Orleans archives, primary sources, secondary sources, and interviews. The focus will be on how to produce a carefully researched work of biography that provides rigorous training in writing skills.