History and the Individual Life: Autobiography, Biography and the history of the self in the British World c1750 -1980

This project will provide a history of the writing of individual lives from the mid 18th century to the present, focusing on autobiography and biography and exploring the ways in which they have reflected social and political change, new ideas about psychology and subjectivity, and changing conceptualisations of the self. The importance of gender, class, ethnicity, national identity and imperial experience to ideas about the self and to the construction of individual lives will all be explored, in order to show the links between the writing of individual lives and broader historical developments.