Dear Aleksandra,

in literary theory I can suggest you:

Lejeune, Philippe (1989). On Autobiography. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Best,

Ferenc

I'm not familiar with research on the topic of biographical essays as a research technique. On the other hand, there is a wonderful book by Howard Gruber who analyzed Darwin's journals as a way to understand Darwin's developing understandings of evolution. I think that Gruber wrote about analyzing Darwin's notes as a technique to conceptualize development.

Hope this is in the direction of what you are looking for.

Best wishes

Sid

Thank you very much

Dear Alekszandra,

Stanley Cavell has been a champion in doing philosophy through autobiography. His most recent book, Little Did I Know (wonderfully reviewed, eg. by Emily Budick) is his autobiography but even previously, e.g. in A Pitch of Philosophy, he investigates philsophical problems through his (and our) everyday life, the ordinary. Cavell is an extra-ordinary, very profound thinker, one of the greatest of our times, I recommend him highly! :)

Best wishes,

Geza

Thank you. The literature of biographical research is very reach but I can't find research where biographical essay was used.

Dear Aleksandra, it is not really clear what exactly do you mean by biographical essay as a research technique in biographical research. Could you explain it a bit?

F

Dear Aleksandra,

I would recommend as an introduction the online article on autobiography in the "living handbook of narratology", written by Helga Schwalm, see the link below. There you will find a lot of further primary and secondary sources, be they of theoretical nature such as the aforementioned Gerard Genette ("Fiction and Diction") or Philippe Lejeune ("On Autobiography"), or be they studies on the history of the form.

Best regards,

Jörg

http://www.lhn.uni-hamburg.de/article/autobiography

Thank you- I will see it :)