When I was asked to address the role of the personal in contemporary scholarship, I went back and did a quick word search through the various things I've written over the past few years and learned that since 19891 have used the word / in my work no fewer than 7,300 times—and that's not counting this sentence, in which I've managed to use it another 6 times already. So I feel qualified to speak about the use of personal narrative in scholarship—or, more accurately, compelled to speak, since I'm actually too shy to volunteer a response on my own.