Gabriella Kelly-Davies on writing biographies of scientists and doctors and much more
A wide ranging discussion of how to write about science and medicine in a biographical narrative, with some talk of other biographers including Kai Bird and Hermione Lee
10 Jun 202343min
What memory tells us about biography and doesn’t.
A continuation of the previous podcast about the variables in understanding a writer and his world.
3 Jun 202343min
The nature of literary power, who holds it, and how the biographer should understand it.
Samuel R. Delany presents the writer as biographical subject and what it is the biographer needs to know about literary world and how reputations are made. But first a discussion of a movie, The Wife
3 Jun 202352min
The Power of the Living Biographical Subject v The Power of the Biographer
What does it mean to be powerful in the literary world, and in what sense should the biographer take it seriously?
23 Mai 202331min
Dylan Thomas and why biography matters, with a cameo performance by Marilyn Monroe
The correspondence with Samuel R. Delany continues, with many digressions, but all of them pertaining to biography and the work it can accomplish
14 Mai 202334min
Why a biographer would go ahead when the subject is fiercely resistant
The Sontag saga continues
7 Mai 202334min
Samuel R. Delany refuses to give up on Susan Sontag’s biographers
The seventh part of what is turning out to be a saga—listened to its entirety it amounts to a class on biography that you can take for free.
30 Apr 202346min
Seamus Heaney in America with biographer Ed O’Shea
A talk about Ed O’Shea’s recent book and what matters about Seamus Heaney’s experience in America
30 Apr 202334min
