About IABA

IABA at the University of Peking, China, 1999

IABA at the University of Cyprus, 2016

IABA World

In 1999, Zhao Baisheng created the International Auto/biography Association (IABA) at the First International Auto/Biography Conference at Peking University, attended by delegates from Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe and North America. IABA's stated aims at the time were 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 at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, set up a listserv for IABA.

Since 1999, IABA and its four continental chapters have held 25 international conferences in Asia, Americas, Australia, Europe and Africa. 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 and Translations’ – at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa in 2008. In 2010 Margaretta Jolly, with Sam Carroll, organized the seventh IABA international conference at the Centre for Life History and Life Writing, University of Sussex. In 2012 the Australian National University hosted the sixth international IABA conference, ‘Framing Lives’, in association with the National Portrait Gallery – convened by Paul Arthur, Rosanne Kennedy and Gillian Whitlock. In 2014, Julie Rak, Laurie McNeill, Eva Karpinski and Linda Warley hosted 'Auto/biography in Transit' at the Banff Centre, Alberta, Canada. In 2016, Amy Podromou and Stephan Stephanides of the University of Cyprus convened "Excavating Lives" in Nicosia, Cyprus.

IABA Europe

The first chapter of IABA began when Alfred Hornung, Marijke Huisman, Anneke Ribberink and Monica Soeting hosted the first IABA-Europe conference in Amsterdam in 2009. The chapter holds conferences biannually in the year when IABA World is not running. The IABA-Europe chapter continued its activities in 2011 with a conference at the University of Tallin, Estonia, organized by Leena Kurvet-Käosaar, Maris Saagpakk, Piret Peiker and Maarja Hollo. The IABA-Europe 2013 conference, ‘Beyond the Subject: New Developments in Life Writing’, was held 1 October – 3 November 2013, in Vienna, Austria, hosted by the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for the History and Theory of Biography.The IABA Europe 2015 conference was hosted by the Centre for Atlantic Studies and the European Journal of Life Writing in Madeira, Portugual, and was called Dialogical Dimensions in Narrating Lives and Life Writing.

IABA Africa

The latest chapter of IABA published this report in 2027:

Founding of IABA Africa in 2017

On the strength of the Stellenbosch University English Department’s research and publications in diverse forms of ‘life narrative’, in January 2017 the department was awarded the IABA charter to found the Africa chapter. The inaugural colloquium was organised by colleagues Dr Tilla Slabbert and Prof Sally Ann Murray, under the title “The Textualities of Auto/Biography: or, the Auto/biogrAfrical”. The event, held at Stias (The Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies) on 19-20 October, 2017, attracted scholars from South African and African universities, as well as from universities in Australia, and England.

The plenary address was given by Dr Ricia Chansky of the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez, and editor of a/b: Auto/Biography Studies. While the devastating hurricanes that had so recently ravaged Puerto Rico put paid to her travel plans, Dr Chansky fortunately managed, amid the crisis of evacuation and disrupted services, to video-record her paper, and her virtual presence at the colloquium made for an extremely moving plenary address on “Instability and Autobiography: Rereading Lives in Times of Crisis.” The topic couldn’t have been more apt. For many in the audience, the talk brought home the oppressive, debilitating relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico, and the examples of women’s life writing which Chansky discussed carried the message of environmental disaster in relation to the ongoing political disaster that shapes the lives of Puerto Ricans.

To give a tantalising glimpse of the wonderful range of papers given at IABA Africa: there were presentations on “Queer Self-writing and Archive Creation in Francophone North Africa”; “Ken Gampu: Between Biopic Stardom and Colonial Beingness”; “Uncanny Times: the Case of Eugene de Kock”; “The Tension Between ‘Disability Autobiography’ and ‘Autre-biography”; “‘Reconstructive Imagination’ at Work in a Child Soldier Narrative”; “Lives in Crisis: Constructing the Self in Ebola Narratives”, and “Love and Struggle: the Auto/biographies of Ayesha Dawood and Fatima Meer”. The event was very deliberately welcoming of papers from many disciplines – hence the lively melee of literary scholars, historians, psychologists, social anthropologists, writers, and cultural studies practitioners. The structure of the colloquium also took inspiration from the innovations experienced at previous IABA international conferences: longer academic papers were interspersed with brief ‘a/b re-mXd’ sessions, allowing presenters to sketch out work-in-progress, or to read from their creative life writing projects. It was a heady intellectual mix which also made space for the affective and the embodied. And let’s not forget the super supper at Tastebud, where food and vino contributed to the veritas of relaxed collegiality.

IABA Africa now begins to look forward. What is in the offing? The team plans to build on the inaugural energies which supported graduate student attendance, and fostered a collaborative environment for those interested in the wide range of a/b studies in African contexts, creating conversations among established a/b forms such as letters, archival research, biopics, and fiction, and new social media, digital platforms, orality, and creative work. The Africa chapter is presently compiling a membership list, and planning a special journal issue. If you have ideas, or are interested in joining IABA Africa, please email both samurray@sun.ac.za and mslabbert@sun.ac.za. All are welcome to contribute!

IABA Asia-Pacific

Founded in 2014 by Kate Douglas as a result of conversations with Gillian Whitlock, Anna Poletti, Paul Arthur, Maureen Perkins, Rocio Davis, and Philip Holden, IABA's newest chapter hosted its first conference in 2015 at Flinders University in Australia.

IABA Chapter of the Americas

This chapter was begun by Ricia A. Chansky and Emily Hipchen, editors of the journal a/b: Auto/biography Studies. The members of its steering committee come from South America, Central America, the Caribbean and North America. The Americas Chapter of IABA was founded at the conference, “Auto/Biography across the Americas: Reading beyond Geographic and Cultural Divides,” held from 22-25 July 2013 in San Juan, Puerto Rico.The first full IABA Americas conference, called "Encounters Across the Americas: Archives, Technologies, Methods" was held in 2015 on the campus of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, co-convened by Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson.

IABA Americas at the University of Michigan, USA, 2015

IABA World at the University of Sussex, UK, 2010

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