Types of biography

Finding Your Subject

• It is great if you already have a subject in mind (or a list of potential subjects) to write about.

If you do, I may be able to point you in the direction of relevant secondary literature. If you do not, don’t panic.

Religious autobiography

Let me know what questions, topics, and time periods are especially interesting to you, and I’ll make suggestions about possible subjects.

• There is no requirement that the subject be a famous intellectual or conform to conventional definitions of who intellectuals were and are (although it is fine if your subject does this).

Be creative. Intellectual history can accommodate obscure and non-conventional people, thinkers who had bad ideas as well as good ones, and failed creative projects as well as ones we all know about because they succeeded.

• There is no requirement that the subject be someone you admire or whose ideas you share.

Examining ideas that were disca