Writing Academic Biographies: Pope Francis, the 14th Dalai Lama and Edna Adan of Somaliland Professor Mario I Aguilar

This is the opening CSRP seminar for the second semester.

Professor Aguilar, biographer of Pope Francis, and currently commissioned to write biographies of the 14th Dalai Lama and Edna Adan of Somaliland, will reflect on writing academic biographies, theological narratives, and political conundrum.

Are biographies products of the imaginary or hermeneutical vehicles of academic research? Indeed, such inter-disciplinary research projects have provided masterpieces at the University of St Andrews, including Robert Crawford's biography of T S Eliott. However, he would argue, they are significant contributions to theological thinking of history, a genre he already explored in Writing Histories of Boorana (History in Africa 1996) and the life of Galma Dida of northern Kenya.