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[jdviolet]

What should a requested "biography" to accompany a humanities journal submission consist of? I'm fairly certain they don't wish to know where and when I was born . . . should it be a short, narrative form of the C.V.?

[crazybatlady]

I use something like this:

"Crazy B. Lady teaches Really Exciting Subject at Best University Ever.  She is the author of Great Book Title and several articles about New Theory and Other Interesting Idea.  She's currently working on a book manuscript about Thrilling Stuff.  In her spare time, she reads the Chronicle Forums and pretends to be Ann Landers."

You should read the Contributers page of the journal you've submitted to for some ideas, but this is the basic boilerplate kind of information they want.  Just a few sentences about your scholarship and affiliation.

Good luck with the submission!

[jdviolet]

Thanks, CBL! I've worked hard on this submission and have high hopes. I was a bit puzzled by the bio requirement, as contributor bios don't actually appear in the published journal.

[crazybatlady]

Really?  If there's not a Contributer page, most journals I read have a footnote or endnote bio with each article.  I don't think I've ever seen one without some mention of the contributers.

Have you looked over the introduction?  Perhaps the editor introduces contributers there?

[shamu]

I was a bit puzzled by the bio requirement, as contributor bios don't actually appear in the published journal.

I was going to suggest to look at biosketches published in the same journal. Do you know why they ask for them if they don't go anywhere? Perhaps they have them on-line or publish them once a year.

[seniorscholar]

The humanities journals in which I publish usually ask for (and publish) something between 50 and 100 words. "Crazy B. Lady" has the model, though I almost never see the final sentence about spare time. If you're still a grad student and have no publications, it's "is working on a dissertation "Dissertation Title" at Big University under Professor Famous. S/he is also interested in [another specialty or two]."

The point of the biography is (1) to give publicity to your work, both published and forthcoming (2) to give an institutional attachment so if anyone wants to contact you they can look at a department directory and (3) to advertise yourself to people planning conferences, inviting keynote speakers, putting together an essay collection, looking for faculty, seeking contributors to a reference work, etc. I have used contributors' notes published in the journal for all of these purposes.

[crazybatlady]

The final sentence in my model there was a silly one, seniorscholar, just to make fun of myself.  :-)