In 1974 I began an M.A. program at the University of New England by external studies. The program was very sharply focussed on leadership. I spent five years in that program, completed the course work and left my dissertation incomplete. I went on in the 1980s to study multi-cultural education and moral education--this is the academic background I bring to this site. I also taught in pre-primary, primary, secondary and post-secondary schools as well as in a school for seniors--where I finished my career in 2005 after some 35 years in classrooms. My posts here in this section of this forum are based on this background--and much else.-Ron Price, Tasmania
___________________My interest in leadership now is from an autobiographical perspective. The following paragraphs describe my general "tag."
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Life writing is now one of the most dynamic and rapidly developing fields of international scholarship. Life writing is a catch-all term developed to encompass several genres: autobiography, biography, memoir, journal, diary, letter and other forms of self-construction. During my pioneering life(1962-2007) and especially since I have been writing this memoir(1984-2007) or what I sometimes refer to as my autobiography, this dynamism and intensive development has been particularly prominent. The field also includes these several genres of life-narrative I mentioned above within various disciplines of the social sciences and humanities: history, anthropology, sociology, politics, leadership and leisure studies, narrative and literary studies, among others. I make use of all these genres in my memoir, but only a small portion of any one of them are found in what has become quite an extensive work.
Life writing addresses and gives voice to many social constituencies including: women, men, indigenous groups, postcolonial societies, ethnic groups and a wide variety of society’s sub-groups like new religious movements. The sub-group I am concerned with in my work is the Baha’i community. This community is part of my focus. Life writing, among its many purposes, gives voice to those who suffer illness, oppression, misfortune and tragedy. It is also an enabling structure, tool or mechanism for those who wish to speak in a spirit of affirmation, inquiry, amazement or celebration among other emotional and intellectual raison d’etres or modi vivendi. My voice, my spirit, finds its enabling structure, its raison d’etre, in this lengthy work.
Finally, let me add the following as a focus, a tag on my leadership perspective/focus:
In addition to its high, its increasing, academic profile, life writing generates great interest among the general public. Works of biography and autobiography sell in vast numbers; millions now work in or are part of large organisations; millions follow the endless political and economic analyses that are generated by the media daily. People in these groups are interested in the literature by or about the leaders and the special people associated with their group and organizational affiliations.
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