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Hans Renders is a professor of history and biography theory at the University of Groningen.[1] Since 2004, he is also the head of the university's "Biography Institute".[2][3]
Currently, Renders is board member of the journals Le Temps des Médias; Quaerendo. A Quarterly Journal from the Low Countries and ZL. Literair-historisch tijdschrift. From 2004 to 2015, he was a critic for OVT, a radio program of Dutch public broadcasting channel VPRO. In addition, since 1988, he has been a critic for Dutch newspapers Het Parool and Vrij Nederland.[4] Furthermore, he supplied until 2017 reviews of biographies for Historisch Nieuwsblad, chairs Biography Portal of the Netherlands,[5] is vice-president of The Biography Society/La Société de Biography,[6] and was from 2010 to 2018 a board member of Biographer's International Organization.[7]
Renders started his career as literary critic for De Brabant Pers and De Groene Amsterdammer in 1985. For years, he wrote for Intermediair, and he worked as a journalist for the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad in the period of 1988 to 1995. Moreover, he has written for De Leeuwarder Courant, was a permanent critic for De Journalist from 1990 to 2002, and reviewed books written about journalism, history and media history for Media Facts and American Journalism History from 2003 to 2010.[8] Currently, he is chief editor of Brill publishing's "Biography Studies" .[9] Starting in 1988, he wrote reviews for Het Parool.[10] In addition to this, he has been a permanent guest on OVT's monthly book column from 2004 to 2015, and started a monthly column on biographies in 2016 with his "Een Leven in Letters" (literally, 'A Life in Letters'), which can be heard every third Sunday of the month on the radio program Met het Oog op Morgen. Routledge listed him as one of their featured authors.[11]
Renders received a doctorate for his biography of Jan Hanlo, Zo meen ik dat ook jij bent. Since then, he has been focused on history and biography in academia, culminating in the founding of the Biography Institute in 2004. In 2000, Renders published Braak, a book about the renowned literary magazine of the Vijftigers, which featured authors such as Remco Campert and Lucebert. His biography of Jan Campert, Wie weet slaag ik in de dood was released in 2004. In that same year, he also published Gevaarlijk Drukwerk. Een Vrije Uitgeverij in Oorlogstijd. Renders is cofounder of the Jan Hanlo-Essayprijs, until 2018 jury member of the Plutarch Award for American biographies and since then a board member of the Nederlandse Biografie Prijs for Dutch biographies.[12] He was, from the beginning in 2009 until 2018, also on the Board of Directors and since then a member of the Advisory Council at Biographers International Organization.[13]
Renders' main argument is that "biography as a research area belongs to history." Therefore, it should be studied using a historical methodology. [14] In order to achieve serious academic attention, Renders argues, scholars of biography studies should "present a more consistent and broadly based research methodology and theoretical framework."[15] His major publications focus on the difference between biography and Life Writing, the biographical turn in history and the history of biography studies.
