In the age of self-help books and memoirs, one wonders, can we really change? Can writing offer us the hope of transformation? Of conversion? How do you publish the "self"? Can literary genres serve as models for how to live one's life? We will confront such questions through the fictions and philosophies of the past; through historical figures such as Socrates and St. Augustine and the fictive characters of drama and the novel. Weekly theoretical readings on the self and narratology will also urge us to explore the boundaries of literature and philosophy and to seriously consider how we enact narratives of change in our daily lives.