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Abstract

The subject of this year's lectures 2018-2019 was the examination and analysis of different kinds of autobiographical narratives from a wide variety of cultures in the modern era. We began with a discussion of the importance of these narratives in the work of the great Swiss historian Jacob Burkhardt (1818-1897), particularly in his book, Renaissance Civilization in Italy (1860). In a section of this work entitled l'Entwicklung des Individuums, Burckhardt argued that before the Renaissance in Europe, there was no consciousness of " soi ", but merely a sense of collective belonging. Thus he writes :

" In the Middle Ages, the two sides of human consciousness - one turned inward and the other outward - were as if asleep or half-awake, for they were hidden by a veil woven of faith, illusions and childish preoccupations [...]. Man was self-aware only in relation to a general category, i.e. as a member of a race, a people, a party, a family or a corporation. "

Program