In this paper, I tackle the concept of autobiography, which is often neglected in academia. I approach the concept through literary theory and its attempts to define autobiography as a literary genre. I examine the ambivalence of autobiographical writing, which oscillates between fact and fiction, and how this changes the position of autobiography in current academic and political thought. In the context of philosophy, I examine the relationship between life and work through Nietzsche and the tone of philosophical discourse through Cavell. Briefly, through the thoughts of Eva D. Bahovec, I touch on the role of autobiography in feminist theory and what it means to write an autobiography as a woman. Finally, with the help of Cavell, Nietzsche, Freud, and Deleuze, I examine the turn to autobiography as a shift from writing criticism to writing a clinic that heals the writer and civilization as a whole.
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