The 7th Biennial International Auto/Biography Association Conference at University of Sussex

Monday 28 June - Thursday 1 July 2010

Conference Topic: Life Writing and Intimate Publics

In 1999, Zhao Baisheng created the International Auto/Biography Association (IABA) at the First International Auto/Biography Conference in Peking University, attended by delegates from Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe and North America. Its aims are to broaden the world vision of auto/biographers, scholars and readers, to deepen the cross-cultural understanding of self, identity and experience, and to carry on global dialogues on life writing. An organizing committee was formed in Beijing. After the conference, Craig Howes, director of the Center for Biographical Research, set up a list-serve for IABA at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa.

So far the International Auto/Biography Association has held six international conferences in Asia, North America, Australia and Europe. Susanna Egan, Gabriele Helms and Shirley Neuman organized the second IABA conference -"Autobiography and Changing Identities"- at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver in July 2000. Two years later, Richard Freadman, Director of the Unit for Studies in Biography and Autobiography, hosted the third IABA conference - "Life Writing and the Generations" - at La Trobe University, Melbourne. David Parker, Chair of the English Department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, held the fourth biennial IABA conference? "Inhabiting Multiple Worlds: Auto/Biography in an (Anti-) Global Age"- in Hong Kong. In 2006, Alfred Hornung organized the fifth IABA conference -"Auto/Biography and Mediation"- at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany. Craig Howes hosted the sixth IABA conference -"Life Writing & Translations"- at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa in June, 2008.

In 2010, the Centre for Life History and Life Writing Research will host the seventh IABA conference at the University of Sussex. For the IABA off-year event, Alfred Hornung and Monica Soeting are hosting an IABA-Europe conference in Amsterdam in June 2009.

Conference photo gallery

Photos of the 7th Biennial International Auto/Biography Association Conference