This course explores the personal meanings of language learning as historically and culturally grounded experience. We review methods of narrative inquiry in applied linguistics, then consider such constructs as ‘identity,’ ‘self,’ and ‘subjectivity’ as they are defined in the applied linguistics literature and illustrated in autobiographical works of multilinguals. We analyze how personal narratives of second language learners/ users illuminate the nature of access, agency, power, and desire in language learning and socialization.