In Mapping the ‘I’, Research on Self Narratives in Germany and Switzerland, the contributors, working with egodocuments (autobiographies, diaries, family chronicles and related texts), discuss various approaches to early modern concepts of the person and of personhood, the place of individuality within this context, genre and practices of writing. The volume documents the cooperation between the Berlin and Basel self-narrative research groups during its first phase (2000-2007). Next to addressing crucial methodological issues, it also demonstrates the richness of egodocuments as historical sources in contributions concentrating, for example, on the body and illness, on food, as well as on the early modern economy, group cultures and autobiographical considerations of one's own suicide.

Contributors include Andreas Bähr, Fabian Brändle, Lorenz Heiligensetzer, Angela Heimen, Gabriele Jancke, Gudrun Piller, Sophie Ruppel, Thomas M. Safley, Claudia Ulbrich, Kaspar von Greyerz, and Patricia Zihlmann-Märki.