Los ensayos y tribulaciones de la biografía anglófona e hispana: una reflexión personal

Abstract

This article reflects on the evolution and the current state of Anglophone biography, focusing on the inherent and persistent tensions with regard to its definition, value, and purpose, and on its belated acceptance within the Anglophone academy. It also highlights the profound gap between Anglophone biography and the limited scope, practice, and academic marginalisation of Hispanic biography.Key words: biography; anglophone; hispanic; history; academy.Resumen: Este artículo reflexiona sobre la evolución y el estado actual de la biografía anglófona, enfocándose en las tensiones inherentes y persistentes con respecto a su definición, valor y propósito, y su aceptación tardía dentro de la academia anglófona. También destaca la gran brecha entre la biografía anglófona y el alcance limitado, la práctica y la marginación académica de la biografía hispana.

Simón Bolívar and friends: Recent biographies of independence figures in Colombia and Venezuela

“…It has been argued that in eras of monumental social or political change, such as Spanish American independence, these factors "coalesced to form veritable force fields in which a heightened biographical consciousness took shape" (Hellbeck, 2009). In comparison to the Anglophone biographical tradition, one scholar has observed that Hispanic biography has remained "tainted by, and tethered to, a politicized nationalism," which tends to produce and reproduce the same histories of heroes and villains known as historias de bronce (histories in bronze; Garner, 2018). In the same vein, Will Fowler characterizes the Mexican biographical tradition as "Manichaean" and remarks on the absence of deeply researched, scholarly biographies there, especially for colonial and 19th-century figures.…”