Biography Workshop
School/Centre
National Centre of Biography
Contacts
Each year the National Centre of Biography, based in the School of History, hosts the Biography Workshop series. This series was established in response to requests by practitioners, students, and readers of biography for a forum to discuss a range of methodological issues relating to biography.
The NCB will host ten monthly Biography Workshops in 2025. Throughout the year a wide-ranging set of speakers will discuss their biographical projects, problems, and passions. Each hour-long presentation is followed by a Q&A.
All are welcome! See the program below for the dates and topics for 2025.
Past events
Life in Biography: Observations on writing about lives
28 Nov 2024
In the final Biography Workshop of 2024, historian and author Eileen Chanin will discuss the slipperiness of writing about lives: the challenges, frustrations...'All my petty schemes': The Hong Kong diaries of Chaloner Alabaster, 1855-56
31 Oct 2024
Chaloner Alabaster (later, Sir) became a Student Interpreter in the China Consular Service in 1855, aged 16. The Consular Service was established under the...A Secretive Century: Monte Punshon’s Australia
3 Oct 2024
Ethel May (Monte) Punshon’s 106-year life spanned crucial events in modern Australian history. Born in 1882, she witnessed Melbourne’s 1888 Centennial...Shanghai Demimondaine: From Sex Worker to Society Matron
29 Aug 2024
In this Biography Workshop Nick Hordern explores the hitherto unknown life of Australian woman Lorraine Murray (1910–2000). Arriving in Shanghai in 1933,...Tom Wills: The Insubordinate Life of an Australian Sporting Legend
25 Jul 2024
There are many versions of the origins of our Australian game of football, but all of them include T.W. Wills in some way. A champion cricketer, he had been...‘The name of the product I tested is Life’: The Life and Poetry of Peter Porter - ‘Duelling with diffidence’
27 Jun 2024
In a time of debased international politics and media manipulation of truth, the spin-and-cant-skewering precision of poetry is more important than ever. This...The peripatetic life of landscape artist Eugene von Guérard: discovering the man behind the art
30 May 2024
The peripatetic life of 19th century landscape artist Eugene von Guérard spanned both hemispheres of the globe and most of the 19th century. The ‘facts’ that...The World of Mab Grimwade: Australian Women, Biography and Archives
2 May 2024
Searching for the imprint of a woman’s life is a challenge repeatedly expressed by the biographers of women, and Mab Grimwade is no exception. Born into a...Bennelong & Phillip: A History Unravelled
28 Mar 2024
Kate Fullagar will discuss the background, research, writing, and unusual methodology of her third monograph, Bennelong & Phillip (Simon & Schuster,...Subjects of Time: Australian lives at the fin de siècle
29 Feb 2024
The fin de siècle c1890-1914 reflected a tension between movement and stasis, degeneration and progress. Historical actors caught between acting in the world...
