Beginning with St. Augustine’s Confessions, generally thought to be the first autobiography, this module traces shifts in self-conception and self-representation right up to very recent times. Looking at a diverse range of texts from around the world, we will consider key questions: how have autobiographers conceived of the self? How they have construed the relation between self and other? How have they have approached the problems of truth-telling and textual representation? We will consider also the generic particularities of autobiography, and the functions which autobiographical texts can serve.