ABSTRACT
This introductory chapter presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book inquires into a discrete phenomenon that happens to be interesting in a 'mindful of life' way and potentially instructive for addressing certain fundamental concepts and problems in hermeneutics. It focuses on a fundamental and rather curious dimension of autobiographical reflection often manifested in confessional texts of this sort. The book explores Helen Keller's remarkably provocative autobiography The Story of My Life (1988), author takes up a number of issues pertaining to the interrelationship of language, thought, and selfhood. It also explores Jill Ker Conway's The Road From Coorain (1989) in order both to round out and articulate further the view of development being set forth in this book and to show why the process of development itself is frequently concomitant with social critique.
