Autobiography, biography and the web

Posted 06:24 by Lisbeth Klastrup
BadFeed - blog which is turning into a relationship break-up story quickly, but he writes some interesting stuff in the beginning (late November 02) about trying to by anonymous and hiding old blog from girlfriend etc. Funnily enough, Frank Schaap of Fragment.nl easily tracked him down and "exposes" him in his blog. Which neatly goes to show that you are never guaranteed anonymity, at least not if you choose to write from your own domain!

Posted 04:27 by Lisbeth Klastrup
Atplasticbag.org - articles you can find several articles on web culture and publishing.

Posted 07:31 by susana
this is the test

Posted 10:15 by Lisbeth Klastrup
cameron marlow (electro publisher, mit media lab) - he is doing research on blogs, often quoted, and also created Blogdex (??)

Posted 10:14 by Lisbeth Klastrup
Article on weblogs and September 11th

Posted 10:05 by Lisbeth Klastrup
as if softly caressed by a ghost
Who am I today?
Unwashed hair, yesterday's mascara, filhy and baggy clothes, a look of tiredness and a cigarette in one hand and an Irvine Welsh novel in the other. I look exactly as trashed as I feel.

And I don't have anyone I can call to scream please help me.

Posted 06:44 by Lisbeth Klastrup
Living in the Blog-osphere - one of the more thorough, recent articles on bloggin. Via Frank.Interesting because it focused more on the "non-descript", non A-List blogger, more diary-kind of type person.

Posted 06:20 by Lisbeth Klastrup
I was just looking for a quote by Proust in Danish when I came across this webpage. It is an autobiographical essay (in Danish) about recovering from serious mental illness, an extraordinary piece of writing. Natten og Gryet (Night og Dawn).

Posted 05:15 by Lisbeth Klastrup
Brief History of Weblogs

Posted 08:11 by Lisbeth Klastrup
Internet Resources on biography - intended to help people find the "proper" biographical resources online.

Posted 08:04 by Lisbeth Klastrup
Biography Writing Service - for only a small fee they write your biography....

Posted 08:04 by susana
There is a whole genre about "family" websites with whole families sharing a site to put up pictures and information and share it with the world. A big list of them is here. This is a very good example.

Posted 08:03 by susana
A million lives, lots of biographies on the net.

Posted 07:58 by susana
Apparently, the first autobiography was by Saint Augustine around 400 a.d.

Posted 07:48 by Lisbeth Klastrup
biography-center indexes 11291 biographies ! - hereby 5000+ in English.

Posted 07:47 by Lisbeth Klastrup
Biography Assistant - this site dedicated to the amateur biography writer. As starting point you can choose whether your subject is alive or dead! Or yourself...

Posted 07:45 by Lisbeth Klastrup
Sex Personality test

Posted 07:44 by susana
There is a biography maker online, following the principle: "A good biography brings the person to life . . .
makes us care about what she or he did with time and opportunity". It is not for autobiography, but for writing about some famous person. This is what you have to ask yourself when starting to write:
In what ways was the life remarkable?

In what ways was the life despicable?

In what ways was the life admirable?

What human qualities were most influential in shaping the way this person lived and influenced his or her times?

Which quality or trait proved most troubling and difficult?

Which quality or trait was most beneficial?

Did this person make any major mistakes or bad decisions? If so, what were they and how would you have chosen and acted differently if you were in their shoes?

What are the two or three most important lessons you or any other young person might learn from the way this person lived?

Some people say you can judge the quality of a person's life by the enemies they make. Do you think this is true of your person's life? Explain why or why not.

An older person or mentor is often very important in shaping the lives of gifted people by providing guidance and encouragement. To what extent was this true of your person? Explain.

Many people act out of a "code" or a set of beliefs which dictate choices. It may be religion or politics or a personal philosophy. To what extent did your person act by a code or act indepently of any set of beliefs?

Were there times when the code was challenged and impossible to follow?

What do you think it means to be a hero? Was your person a "hero?" Why? Why not? How is a hero different from a celebrity?

Posted 07:40 by susana
The tests are here. Everyone defines themselves through this.

Posted 07:28 by susana
Spanish blog writers write in English declaredly "so that it is private" ?????

Posted 07:27 by Lisbeth Klastrup
Armarium - Weblog: Danske Blogs - En liste over danske weblogs - this is to my knowledge the most thorough site of Danish weblogs so far.
Winthers weblog has a distinction between Danish weblogs and the others (including some of us blogging in English).
http://www.netliv.net/links/andrelogs.html

Posted 07:23 by Lisbeth Klastrup
Psykisk Syg - this is a webpage of a mentally ill Danish Person. She also has a online Diary. http://www.risle.dk/dagbog.htm.

Posted 07:15 by Lisbeth Klastrup
H-Town Blogs - a community blog (Houston Area Blogging Community) - they also do off-line stuff together!

Posted 07:13 by Lisbeth Klastrup
Shmuel's Soapbox -- Index page - another blogger via FW - not so interesting, but here he defines himself via these links: "Who am I", "Why am I here", "What other journals do I read"...

Posted 07:06 by Lisbeth Klastrup
Ladybug's Garden - another of the French woman's noted blogs. Asian Woman in Canada - seems to be some circle of those blogging....Interesting is also her banner for "Ladybug", underneath it, it says: Link me, link me. I have seen quite a few of this "link to my weblog" banners around lately. People are obviously doing an active effort to get more readers - in this way, the weblog is definitely different from the private diary (would you consciously take it to your family so they could read it??)

Posted 06:46 by Lisbeth Klastrup
Examples of names of journalwriters, the young depressed: murder, corrosivehead, boy-ashamed, dumpsterbaby, cryinsilence, misplaced embryo...

Posted 06:39 by Lisbeth Klastrup
Mistreated young depressed person link page (former name of journal was dead-sin....)

Posted 06:37 by Lisbeth Klastrup
"these are the diaries i read:"
In the early days of the personal webpage a person would typically be charactised by their choice of links poiting to various sites of interest on the net, considered as "cool", or "something about dogs which I love", "fanclub of X celebrity" etc - links thereby supplementing or expressing certains interests and tastes of the writer in question. Today, what characterises a journal user is still the choice of links, however the links now mainly point to other journal sites; i.e. the person is characterised by the interest in the life of certain other people. So the depressed teenager will link to journals of other depressed teenagers etc.

Posted 06:20 by susana
USABLE BIT?

George´s Pérec famous novel La Vie Mode d´Emploi, which is famous for other experimental reasons, is also often quoted as the perfect example of how trivialities can be used to describe people´s lives: the description of the choice and exact disposition of furniture and decoration tell us as much about a person as a list of academic achievements. This novel explicitly uses the jigsaw puzzle as a working metaphor for an artist trying to capture life; Pérec states in his preamble: "The parts do not determine the pattern, but the pattern determines the parts. The pieces are readable only when assembled; in isolation, a puzzle piece means nothing". The reader of La Vie Mode d´Emploi is thus a sort of biographer trying to put together the big picture, after having been given a huge amount of information, that, against initial appearances, turns out to be very relevant.

Personal websites and weblogs can be looked at using this puzzle metaphor. People put up photographs of their house, their favourite armchair, their cat..., they quote their favourite poem or link to the site where they take their favourite recipes from. Taken in isolation these are absolutely trivial facts, but when considered in context --next to each other and in the greater context of a fragmented society where it is hard to hear individual voices-- this level of detail matters very much. In a way, this interest for the trivial mirrors the spread of historical research methods that take into account all sort of apparently minor details about everyday people´s lives as a way of explaining bigger cultural patterns going beyond the traditional notion of history as a long list of ruling kings and battles. One of the founders of this approach is Carlo Ginzburg, with his very interesting "The Cheese and the Worms", published in 1980 as the account of the life of a single sixteenth century miller; where the narrow focus gives extremely meaningful insights into the culture and history of the period.

So on web-based autobiographical forms we have a very narrow focus (myself), and a usually abundant level of detail (my house, my cat, my machines, my illnesses...), is this enough for them to be as interesting as Ginzburg's or Pérec's work? Obviously not.

Posted 06:19 by Lisbeth Klastrup
Cecilie Larsen's journal - young Danish girl, member of Gryphon's Guild. RL diary, but very closely related to her Guild character and friends, too.

Posted 06:11 by Lisbeth Klastrup
I can fly diary by Danish Woman Siff, been writing since July 2000.

Posted 06:06 by Lisbeth Klastrup
The official adventures of Ann and Lyle Højbjerg-Clarke - example of very mundane life "diary" of mixed married couple, using the diary to "to keep in touch with family and friends around the world".

Posted 06:04 by Lisbeth Klastrup
Plume - y o u . c a n . w a t c h . m e . b l e e d - Danish Diary

Posted 06:00 by Lisbeth Klastrup
Diaryland! - diary tool with the ugliest colourscheme in late web history!

Posted 05:55 by Lisbeth Klastrup
FootNotes: A Cyber Journal American Female Single Mum Ex-alcoholic's Diary.

Posted 05:53 by Lisbeth Klastrup
diarist.net | registry - currently listing 5505 online diaries, personal weblogs etc. Listed by country.

Posted 05:51 by Lisbeth Klastrup
aiyah, scribbles of ancient chinese secrets Asian Woman's Blog, since december 2000. Been taken to hospital lately, which gave rise to 30 comments from readers!

Posted 05:43 by Lisbeth Klastrup
The French Woman's links:
bunt sign - Ordinary American Male chronicling his life since Jan 2000. He has a "bio" side page where he gives a conventional biographical description of himself, complete with pictures of various stages of his life. His first paragraph says: "You can probably get to know me better by reading the entries than by anything you're likely to find here, but I'm willing to provide some background, for quick reference purposes", so that the weblog, his everyday thoughts on everyday things, are more relevant to get to know "the real Michael" than the official facts. The last two paragraphs are also revealing:

"I've been writing in paper journals almost every day since December, 1986. The entries were similar to what you'll find in bunt sign. I've changed a few names and omitted some details, and I've reviewed and revised the way some things are written. And I've tried to make a virtue of getting older by drawing on what I've learned over the years. I can't say I'm any wiser, but I'm more patient, with myself as well as others. Otherwise, the style and content of my online journal doesn't differ much from what I've always written privately.

Why do I do this? It's fun, and sometimes it's therapeutic. I thought I might meet some new people, but I've made so many more friends than I ever dreamed possible. My voice here has changed a bit over the time I've been writing online, but my hope is that it's been for the better. I'm not an accomplished web designer (obviously), but I still hope to get better at it with time. Of course, the best thing would be to get a life worth writing (and reading) about. I'm still working on that."

Posted 13:29 by susana
Have found this quote reading about Georges Pérec:
"If only a man knew how to choose among what he calls his experiences that which is really his experience, and how to record truth truly."
R.W. Emerson

An explanation of Perec's La Vie MOde d'emploi here.

Posted 06:44 by Lisbeth Klastrup
Thoughts related to O'Connors book on Biographers:

selecting: should one leave out the inappropriate facts (that seemed to be the early view)
(my example: story of man writing blog on wife and being published in news paper without consent: he clearly thought of his writing as "private" to a certain extent)

biography as the representation of just one voice or several voices -
the dialogic approach is possible - as a constant questioning of the objectivity of the facts laid forth as seen in Nathalie Sarrautes "Enfance" (this is not something O'Connor discusses in what I have read)

to which degree can biog. use anecdotal and personalised conversation as ingredient in his portrait? Blog can be seen as a new genre of personalised conversation...??

O'Connor says (p 7)
"..one of the first tasks of the biographer - to provide his reader with an insight into the personality as well as the acchievement of the subject"

His main point would be that biographers come in two forms:

those, who do the "bonum", i.e. amass a lot of information about their subject but do not select in it (the collectors) - the craftsmen. 19th century biographers would gather info mainly by looking at the "outer" facts of the portrayed persons life, later biographers (this century) would also partake of personal interviews and archival material.

those, who do the "pulchrum", i.e. those who both gather the info but also selects among it in order to give as precise a portrait as possible of the biographed, or as Connor just a wee bit normatively puts it "the essence of the real man". That is, Connor seem to think that the good biographer is an artist himself: in order to give the "right" impression he must carefully select what and where he places people on his canvas. Subjectivity is not only not avoidable, it is a prerequisite for the good biography.

Posted 05:50 by Lisbeth Klastrup
Blogs and Pulitzers - another input in the "why people write blogs" discussion.

Posted 05:48 by Lisbeth Klastrup
The Blog Phenomenon - February article in PC Magazine on blogging. Probably one of those articles that got the entire meta-blogging discussion going. Anyway, whether you agree or not, journalist John Dvorak lists these reasons why people blog:

"Ego gratification. Some people need to be the center of attention. It makes them feel good about themselves to tell the world what important things they've been doing and what profound thoughts they've been having. Curiously, while this looks like the most obvious reason for a Web log, I think it's probably the least likely reason, since it's too trite and shallow.

Antidepersonalization. When people begin to think that they are nothing more than a cog in the wheel of society, they look for any way to differentiate themselves. The Web log proves they are different. Just read it. You'll see.

Elimination of frustration. Day-to-day life, especially in the city, is wrought with frustration, and the Web log gives people the ability to complain to the world. You get to read a lot of complaining in these logs. If you think I'm a complainer, oh boy!

Societal need to share. As a cynic who gets paid to write, I have a hard time with this explanation. But it seems some people genuinely like to "share," and this is one way.

Wanna-be writers. A lot of people want to be published writers. Blogs make it happen without the hassle of getting someone else to do it or having to write well—although there is good writing to be found. Some is shockingly good. Most of it is miserable. I expect to see those Open Learning classes around the country offering courses in Blog writing."

Posted 05:27 by Lisbeth Klastrup
Journal of US (?) writer Douglas Clegg. Writes print books of what appears to be the horror-thriller genre. (Previous writer did Haiku!)

Posted 05:23 by Lisbeth Klastrup
Tools for Writers - site which claims to help writers develop and share. Includes blog and Wiki. --- hmmh, surfing site reveals that it is hardly up and running and actually project of Uni of South Florida writing class, i.e. aimed at helping students write. But the idea is good...:)

Posted 05:07 by Lisbeth Klastrup
Writer's Blog.com female writer's blog

Posted 07:36 by Lisbeth Klastrup
Btw, a very interesting thing is that hardly ANY Danish writer maintains a webpresence. One could speculate a bit on that.
An exeption is Arne Herløv Petersen.(http://herlov.dk/)

Posted 07:33 by Lisbeth Klastrup
Distant Sun blog (http://distantsun.blogspot.com/) - the young academic: "biographing" Eliot??. Broken of into two: the private blog (Distant Sun) and the purely academic, 6th Edition (http://6thedition.blogspot.com/).

Posted 07:27 by Lisbeth Klastrup
Jill writes about Michael Joyce withdrawing his web-presence - yet maintaining it. Might serve as an interesting example.

Posted 07:25 by Lisbeth Klastrup
Found old mail from the editor: max 2000 words!
We told him:
"and we would like to write an article which takes its point of departure in 2, but also relates to some of those issues you mention in 1, as we both feel that we are more well-informed on II. It could be interesting to discuss the concept of the individual self on the net, and various forms of self-expression such as weblogs,webcams and webforums and relate that to a discussion of how to archive "texts" like that and to study the "life and self" of artists who have used mainly the web to express themselves. If you can OK this approach, we will start working on the article soon."

Kristian Editor wrote:
As I see it there are two problems to address:

1: How has the web influenced the biography: which kind of data is disappearing with the web, which kinds are emerging, how has the new media influenced our way of thinking of the individual and history in general etc.

2: How has the web influenced the autobiography: everybody is their own publisher, the possibility to confess, the view into everyday live, the thoughts of the selected individual etc. Here weblogs are obvious and interesting subject.

Posted 07:22 by Lisbeth Klastrup
Selector/collector:
for the biographer, the web presents a wealth of material - an infinite mass of data to collect - but related, increasing complexities of the process of selecting. On a more theoretical level, the webpresence of a person one might want to biography is also problematic: whereas the print "diary" for instance is always read in retrospect and perhaps only by the discerning biographer, online writing in a weblog (what some would say it the netage's equivalent of the diary) is instantly published and read - leading one would think, to an more aware presentation of self - and hence the lack of a truly "private" writerly self for the biographer to refer to.

Posted 07:10 by Lisbeth Klastrup
Here is a link to the German writer I mentioned. His name is Matthias Politycki. The site is called Novel3 - or novel in progress. It is in German, and my reading skills are rusty, but looks like it is still up and running.

Posted 07:53 by susana
Viviane Serfaty
Professor Vivianne Serfaty recently tackled the question of online diaries from a structuralist point of view (NOTE: "Online Diaries: Towards a Structural Approach" at the conference: "Literature and the Internet: New Forms of Electronic Writing", in La Sorbonne, Paris, March 2001 15th-16th. Here are my loose notes on that talk:

) arriving at some conclusions of interest for the study of this "new" form. Her main interest was to find out what were the reasons that made people put their intimate diaries online. Is this a transgression of the conventional ideas about privacy? Apart from the technological explanation, where weblogs are extremely easy to put up as the templates do everything for you (you don´t even need to know basic HTML), she proposed the following categories according to structural considerations, with the main points summarized here:
a) Accumulation. Multimediality, need for exhaustivity, there is a lot of information available online. Relationship to theatricality (Barthes)

b) Open-endness. Profuse linking to anything online, diaries stay online even if people have stopped writing: openness. Linking within archives: backwards and forwards in time.

c) Self-reflexivity. Authors need to justify this practise (diary writing) because it hasn´t got the religious justification it had in the past. It mustn´t look like it is sheer narcisim. Online diarists want to exorcise their own feelings but also to be read, there is a very clear desire for publicity. They also know that writing like this implies fictionalizing their own lives, that turn into literary material. These diaries have a high degree of intertextuality. There isn´t any naive self-revelation but a lot of meta-literary game...

d) Co-production. Through mailing lists, search engines, indexes...; feedback is vital. These authors explicitly search for an audience unlike those of old diaries. They very often link to each other.

Posted 06:41 by susana
HERE ARE THE NOTES:

Common stuff: How autobiography is different from biography (Lisbeth to email expert friend)/ Representational value of what you find online, already public writing / Levels of representation, that is yet another degree
Lisbeth will concentrate on blogs (different types of blogs). Example of how blogs can be used as writer´s workshop (German person). Susana has to send link of French woman who characterized blogs according to degrees and ways of self-representation.
Susana will concentrate on personal homepages and self-performance.
And this is the Hugh link.

Posted 03:39 by susana
We are crap! Let's get started finally or we'll never make it!

Posted 07:24 by susana
I am completely out of the topic it seems! :-( But I heard a whole talk on blogs and self-presentation in the Sorbonne conference last week, I am going to write to the woman and ask her for a copy. It was interesting.

Posted 23:11 by susana
I have just read an article about biography as self-performance. Remind me to let you have a copy.

Posted 15:38 by susana
Yes, we should use the blogwatch. I found this on blogging better, with tips for authors.

Posted 02:30 by Lisbeth Klastrup
Via JIll, a bloggpost on bloggs as Loci Amoeni (gardens).

Re being notified of changes in the blogg, perhaps we should use Jesper's bloggwatcher tool?

Posted 11:03 by susana
And I have to remember to have a look at this blog, this is hard as it is not in the dropping list with the others... ;-)

Posted 10:51 by susana
Yes, but I can´t edit your posts, and that was one of yours... :-)

The x-identity, ha! Talk about biography on the web, I wouldn´t want anybody to know that I am behind that ridiculous surname, and that those adventures I tell in the blog (really true and personal stuff) are mine. We are 5 friends (all women) in this other blog, and we all talk freely about our own lives, under pseudonyms, saying really anything about work, lovelife, whatever. It is a very saucy, very cheeky, very crazy blog, everyone thinks we are sharing stuff we had never shared before, and everyone loves it! I will probably use some examples from it, should we have a separate archive for examples? Or just cut & paste here?

And mmm, do we have deadlines, timelines? I am really lazy otherwise. We could start by sharing out books/articles to read, did you mention a friend who was studying biography? I have found this but it is not online, and this, which has a nice list of related books (follow a link to the left), although we could have some number/s sent. I guess the problem is to know where to start, there is huge amounts of stuff out there.