Description
This paper revisits the longstanding but uneven relationship between life writing and the study of international politics. Biography has never been absent from IR, but its role has often been marginal or implicit. From the foundational figures of the discipline to the recent resurgence of interest in individual agency, IR has drawn on biography more as a resource than a craft. This paper makes the case for a more robust engagement with biography, both as method and as form. It considers how life writing has contributed to IR theory and disciplinary self-understanding. It explores how recent biographical recoveries have unsettled dominant narratives about IR’s history and opened new intellectual terrain.
