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Writing biographies (life stories) for a long time had been a male hegemonic project-writing the lives of great (white) men. Ever since Plutarch and Sueton composed their vitae of the greats of classical antiquity, to the medieval obsession with the hagiographies of holy men (and a few women) and saints, Vasari's lives of great Renaissance artists, down to the French encyclopedists, Dr. Johnson and Lytton Strachey, as well as Ranke and Droysen the genre of biographical writing (“the representation of self ” or “the reconstruction of a human life”) has become increasingly more refined. In the twentieth century male predominance has become contested and the (collective) lives of women, minorities and ordinary people are now the focus of biographical writing. This volume of Contemporary Austrian Studies offers a cross section of Austrian lives and biographical approaches to recent Austrian history. Here are what may be called traditional biographies of leading political figures through the twentieth century. We also suggest that the intellectual biographies (lives of the mind) of thinkers and professionals are fertile soil for biographical study. Moreover, the prosopographic study of common folks in the Austrian population lifts these lives from the dark matter of anonymous masses and gives rich insights into the lives ordinary Austrians have been leading. Das Verfassen von Biographien war lange Zeit eine Domäne der Männer. Von den antiken Biographien des Plutarch oder Sueton, über die mittelalterlichen Lebensbeschreibungen von Heiligen und die französischen Enzyklopädisten hat sich das biographische Schreiben zusehends verfeinert. Im 20. Jahrhundert werden vermehrt Frauen, Minderheiten und einfache Menschen Inhalt von Biographien. Dieser Band der Contemporary Austrian Studies bietet einen Querschnitt österreichischer Vitae der Zeitgeschichte. Neben traditionellen Biographien von hochrangigen PolitikerInnen wie Ignaz Seipel, Bruno Kreisky oder Alois Mock und…

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