OSL Seminar: Contemporary Debates in Life Writing

Dates: April – June 2026 (Fridays) t.b.c.
Venue: University of Amsterdam
Organizers: Dr Marleen Rensen and Dr Anna Seidl (UvA)
Credits: 5 ECs (assignment instructions will follow closer to the date of the event).  NB: Credits can only be awarded to humanities ReMA and PhD students from Dutch universities.
Open to: PhDs and ReMA students; OSL members have first access.

Registration will open Fall 2025.

This course focuses on contemporary debates in life writing as a newly emerging field across disciplines. Life writing is an umbrella term for a wide range of writings about one’s own or someone else’s life, such as biography, autobiography, memoir, diary, bio-fiction and travel writing. In the course we will explore various life stories of men and women in the 20th and 21st centuries, who each had their own unique set of life experiences, beliefs and perceptions. This will help gain a richer understanding of how individuals move through, interact with, and are affected by the major events of their time — and how their lives are narrated, either by themselves or by others. Moreover, we examine the narrative strategies employed in life writing within the context of memory discourses, exploring how life writing can serve as a mobilizing force to challenge or reshape perceptions of dominant historical narratives.

More information will be announced soon.