Introduction to Psychobiographies Pt IV

Dr. Paul H. Elovitz, PhD, began organizing scholarly meetings when he started as a faculty member at Ramapo College and then as convener of the Institute for Psychohistory Saturday Workshops (1975-1982). In 1982, he founded the Psychohistory Forum to nurture psychohistorical research and continues to lead its Executive Council. In 1994, he created Clio’s Psyche (cliospsyche.org) to publish its scholarship, of which he is Editor-in-Chief. Prof. Elovitz is a historian, psychoanalytic researcher, and author of well over 400 publications, covering presidential psychobiography, teaching, documenting the field of psychohistory, and much more. After taking his doctoral degree in history, he trained and practiced as a psychoanalyst for three decades, and in 2019 was made the first Research Psychoanalyst by the New Jersey Institute for Psychoanalysis. Elovitz is the author of The Making of Psychohistory, editor of The Many Roads of the Builders of Psychohistory, and edited or wrote eight other books. He is a founding member and past president of the International Psychohistorical Association (1978-) who held all but one of its offices and continues to serve on its leadership council. He is the sole founder of the IPhA who has attended and presented at all of its annual meetings. In recent years, he has devoted himself to editing, publishing, and writing psychobiography.  Prof. Elovitz was a founding faculty member at Ramapo College who previously taught at Temple, Rutgers, and Fairleigh Dickinson universities. Aside from teaching Western and World Civilizations, his focus on teaching was on American, English, and European history; childhood; gender; genocide; the Holocaust; identity; leadership; psychobiography; psychohistory; the psychology of creativity and innovation; and war and peace. Presently, he teaches post-graduate courses on creativity, psychoanalysis, psychobiography, and other aspects of psychohistory online at psychoanalytic institutes. A Festschrift honoring him is scheduled for publication in Clio’s Psyche in 2024. He may be contacted at .

William McKinley Runyan, PhD, has been at UC Berkeley since 1979, where he has served as Professor in the School of Social Welfare and Research Psychologist at the Institute of Personality and Social Research. He received Emeritus status in 2010 and became Professor of the Graduate School. His books include Life Histories and Psychobiography: Explorations in Theory and Method (1982), Psychology and Historical Interpretation (1988), and he co-edited A History of Psychology in Autobiography (Vol. 9, 2007) with Gardner Lindzey. A set of his writing is available on his website, williamrunyan.com. He may be contacted at .