Edit: I was too prolix in my initial enthusiasm to point out the obvious analog.

>> Can scholarly work, viewed from the perspective of its author's life story, be therefore perceived as a performative act, rather than as primarily objective analysis?

And how do we regard Thucydides today? Had some nephew of his written in his stead would we really wring our hands in some different way about the the account of the Peloponnesian war? Do we really discount people that feel that recent events are of relevance to subsequent generations? Is that not historical, at least in terms of a specific complaint?