My current research project is a book manuscript entitled “Untold Lives: A Democratic Theory of Biography.” This project addresses a paradox of modern democratic culture: although we consider ourselves political equals, we do not believe that all lives are worth the same. The biographies we read make this plain: one’s life must be somehow special to justify being told. But with this worship of greatness and success, we overlook the everyday struggles and small actions undertaken by the ordinary and the obscure. By examining the biographies of workers, peasants, criminals, psychiatric patients, and colonized persons, I show how the life stories of the otherwise invisible and oppressed challenge our political thinking.
William S. Stahl 