Gusdorf conditions and limits of autobiography meaning

Chapter 5 Autobiographical Understanding and Narrative Inquiry

Chapter 5 Autobiographical understanding and narrative inquiry

MarkFreeman

Autobiography is the inroad par excellence into exploring the dynamic features—as well as the profound challenges—of narrative inquiry, or at least that portion of it that looks to the comprehensive study of lives as an important vehicle for understanding the human condition.

This is so for one quite obvious reason: Autobiography is itself a fundamental form of narrative inquiry, and by examining what Georges Gusdorf has referred to as the “conditions and limits of autobiography” (1956/1980), there exists a valuable opportunity for examining the conditions and limits of narrative inquiry more generally.

But there is another, perhaps less obvious, reason for seizing on autobiography and memoir as an inroad into exploring the dynamic features of narr