Helga Lenart-Cheng
Biographic Data
| ID | 1356110 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Helga Lenart-Cheng |
| GIVEN NAMES | Helga |
| FAMILY NAME | Lenart-Cheng |
| SIGNATURE | LENART-CHENG H |
| AFFILIATIONS | Saint Mary's College of California |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7428-9551 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 7 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 12 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Platform Authority on Prime Time
Direct-to-consumer DNA testing has rendered family secrets newly visible through platforms that translate kinship into databases, laboratory-derived genetic profiles, algorithmic relative matching, and quantified displays. This article examines how PBS’s Finding Your Roots imports these genetic profiles and platform outputs into a legacy broadcast format, staging reveal sequences in which probabilistic inference is transformed into publicly autho…
Border Memoirs and Border Aesthetics
Bitter Water
Story Revolutions
Personal stories in migration museums and our notions of hospitality
The number of migration museums is growing all over the world. These new museums seek to actively shape debates about immigration, and they often rely on immigrants’ personal stories to engage museum visitors and immigrant communities in dialogue. The article uses the case study of France’s National Museum of the History of Immigration in Paris and its collection of personal stories (The Gallery of Gifts) to explore this new form of story-activis…
Anaesthetics of Existence
Reviewed by: Anaesthetics of Existence: Essays on Experience at the Edge by Cressida J. Heyes Helga Lenart-Cheng (bio) Anaesthetics of Existence: Essays on Experience at the Edge Cressida J. Heyes Duke University Press, 2020, 192 pp. ISBN 9781478008262, $24.95 paperback. In her latest book, philosopher Cressida Heyes explores various liminal states of consciousness and their personal and political implications. The book consists of case studies o…
Wilhelm Dilthey’s Views on Autobiography
The paper examines the role of autobiographical literature in Dilthey’s ‘critique of historical reason.’ The purpose of the essay is (1) to offer an in-depth analysis of Dilthey’s concept of autobiography, (2) to place it into the larger framework of his lifelong epistemological project, and (3) to investigate the influence of Dilthey’s ideas on an early study of autobiography, Georg Misch’s History of Autobiography in Antiquity. The key argument…
Mapping Lives Across Borders
The number of archives collecting refugee life stories is growing rapidly. Most of these collections are accessible online, they often contain video interviews conducted by caseworkers, and many of
Paul Ricoeur and the “Particular” Case of Autobiography
This essay explores the relation between Paul Ricoeur's concept of narrative identity and the genre of autobiography. A logical fallacy committed by Ricoeur has contributed to the polarization of the debate. His ambiguous references misled critics to treat autobiography either as a “model case” or a “limit case” of narrative identity
Concepts of Simultaneity and Community in the Crowd-Sourced Video DiaryLife in a Day
This article seeks to contribute to the debate about the relationship between time and social identity by studying the recent trend of simultaneous, crowd-sourced visual diaries. The article focuses on the concept of simultaneity and its relation to communal identity. Crowd-sourced visual diaries such as 2010’s Life in a Day are often celebrated as a means to relativize time and social homogeneity through individual narrative perspectives. To cha…
Recent Trends in Using Life Stories for Social and Political Activism
Lifestory-sharing sites have never been as popular as today. These sites interpret the act of "sharing" life stories as a form of communal endeavor, and argue that publicly shared life stories will lead to more inclusive communities and to more effective forms of participatory democracy. The present article studies the rhetoric of this new form of lifestory-based activism, and suggests that we need to be cautious about accepting some of its more …
Autobiography as Advertisement
Autobiographers can manipulate not only public issues in an indirect, suggestive way, but their autobiographies can have a similarly decisive role in modifying public opinion concerning the values of their own art. We fall pray to these seemingly innocent self-promoting strategies, even though they often influence decisively our assessment of these authors-and ultimately our literary canons. By examining the autobiography of Gertrude Stein, The A…
Recent Trends in Using Life Stories for Social and Political Activism
Lifestory-sharing sites have never been as popular as today. These sites interpret the act of "sharing" life stories as a form of communal endeavor, and argue that publicly shared life stories will lead to more inclusive communities and to more effective forms of participatory democracy. The present article studies the rhetoric of this new form of lifestory-based activism, and suggests that we need to be cautious about accepting some of its more …
Personal stories in migration museums and our notions of hospitality
The number of migration museums is growing all over the world. These new museums seek to actively shape debates about immigration, and they often rely on immigrants’ personal stories to engage museum visitors and immigrant communities in dialogue. The article uses the case study of France’s National Museum of the History of Immigration in Paris and its collection of personal stories (The Gallery of Gifts) to explore this new form of story-activis…
Mapping Lives Across Borders
The number of archives collecting refugee life stories is growing rapidly. Most of these collections are accessible online, they often contain video interviews conducted by caseworkers, and many of
Paul Ricoeur and the “Particular” Case of Autobiography
This essay explores the relation between Paul Ricoeur's concept of narrative identity and the genre of autobiography. A logical fallacy committed by Ricoeur has contributed to the polarization of the debate. His ambiguous references misled critics to treat autobiography either as a “model case” or a “limit case” of narrative identity
Autobiography as Advertisement
Autobiographers can manipulate not only public issues in an indirect, suggestive way, but their autobiographies can have a similarly decisive role in modifying public opinion concerning the values of their own art. We fall pray to these seemingly innocent self-promoting strategies, even though they often influence decisively our assessment of these authors-and ultimately our literary canons. By examining the autobiography of Gertrude Stein, The A…
Recent Trends in Using Life Stories for Social and Political Activism
Lifestory-sharing sites have never been as popular as today. These sites interpret the act of "sharing" life stories as a form of communal endeavor, and argue that publicly shared life stories will lead to more inclusive communities and to more effective forms of participatory democracy. The present article studies the rhetoric of this new form of lifestory-based activism, and suggests that we need to be cautious about accepting some of its more …
Concepts of Simultaneity and Community in the Crowd-Sourced Video DiaryLife in a Day
This article seeks to contribute to the debate about the relationship between time and social identity by studying the recent trend of simultaneous, crowd-sourced visual diaries. The article focuses on the concept of simultaneity and its relation to communal identity. Crowd-sourced visual diaries such as 2010’s Life in a Day are often celebrated as a means to relativize time and social homogeneity through individual narrative perspectives. To cha…
Paul Ricoeur and the “Particular” Case of Autobiography
This essay explores the relation between Paul Ricoeur's concept of narrative identity and the genre of autobiography. A logical fallacy committed by Ricoeur has contributed to the polarization of the debate. His ambiguous references misled critics to treat autobiography either as a “model case” or a “limit case” of narrative identity
Mapping Lives Across Borders
The number of archives collecting refugee life stories is growing rapidly. Most of these collections are accessible online, they often contain video interviews conducted by caseworkers, and many of
Wilhelm Dilthey’s Views on Autobiography
The paper examines the role of autobiographical literature in Dilthey’s ‘critique of historical reason.’ The purpose of the essay is (1) to offer an in-depth analysis of Dilthey’s concept of autobiography, (2) to place it into the larger framework of his lifelong epistemological project, and (3) to investigate the influence of Dilthey’s ideas on an early study of autobiography, Georg Misch’s History of Autobiography in Antiquity. The key argument…
Anaesthetics of Existence
Reviewed by: Anaesthetics of Existence: Essays on Experience at the Edge by Cressida J. Heyes Helga Lenart-Cheng (bio) Anaesthetics of Existence: Essays on Experience at the Edge Cressida J. Heyes Duke University Press, 2020, 192 pp. ISBN 9781478008262, $24.95 paperback. In her latest book, philosopher Cressida Heyes explores various liminal states of consciousness and their personal and political implications. The book consists of case studies o…
Personal stories in migration museums and our notions of hospitality
The number of migration museums is growing all over the world. These new museums seek to actively shape debates about immigration, and they often rely on immigrants’ personal stories to engage museum visitors and immigrant communities in dialogue. The article uses the case study of France’s National Museum of the History of Immigration in Paris and its collection of personal stories (The Gallery of Gifts) to explore this new form of story-activis…
Story Revolutions
Border Memoirs and Border Aesthetics
Bitter Water
Platform Authority on Prime Time
Direct-to-consumer DNA testing has rendered family secrets newly visible through platforms that translate kinship into databases, laboratory-derived genetic profiles, algorithmic relative matching, and quantified displays. This article examines how PBS’s Finding Your Roots imports these genetic profiles and platform outputs into a legacy broadcast format, staging reveal sequences in which probabilistic inference is transformed into publicly autho…
Sociology (7 works) · Art (6 works) · History (5 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · Aesthetics (4 works) · Computer Science (4 works) · Epistemology (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Literature (4 works) · Philosophy (4 works)