Reading Lives: How the Personal Might be Social

<jats:p> This article addresses the issue of how sociologists can re-integrate the study, and the status, of the individual into social theory. The author suggests that biography and autobiography provide important resources, through which it is possible to see how specific people internalise particular social expectations and aspirations. The essay includes a brief discussion of aspects of the lives of Simone de Beauvoir and Virginia Woolf. </jats:p>