ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the concept of authenticity and discusses how historians of the self have engaged with it. It also discusses work that draws on multiple types of personal narratives, through case studies in which authors explicitly compare different genres and their potential for both raising and answering questions about the past. The chapter considers some adventures with unusual genres, and the new kinds of history that they make possible. Historians who use a single type of personal narrative frequently make a double claim about the specific genre on which they focus. The exploration of the work of historians who use multiple genres of personal testimony suggests that such a methodology is not only conducive to a multivalent exploration of a life, but may be full of surprises. Feminists encouraged oral historians to listen for muted narratives and to foster interiority and reflection in their interviewees.
