Bjorn Krondorfer
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804768993
- eISBN:
- 9780804773430
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804768993.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
This book examines how men open their intimate lives and thoughts to the public through confessional writing. It examines writings—by St. Augustine, a Jewish ghetto policeman, an imprisoned Nazi ...
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This book examines how men open their intimate lives and thoughts to the public through confessional writing. It examines writings—by St. Augustine, a Jewish ghetto policeman, an imprisoned Nazi perpetrator, and a gay American theologian—that reflect sincere attempts at introspective and retrospective self-investigation, often triggered by some wounding or rupture and followed by a transformative experience. The book takes seriously the vulnerability exposed in male self-disclosure while offering a critique of the religious and gendered rhetoric employed in such discourse. The religious imagination, it argues, allows men to talk about their intimate, flawed, and sinful selves without having to condemn themselves or to fear self-erasure. Herein lies the greatest promise of these confessions: by baring their souls to judgment, these writers may also transcend their self-imprisonment.Less
This book examines how men open their intimate lives and thoughts to the public through confessional writing. It examines writings—by St. Augustine, a Jewish ghetto policeman, an imprisoned Nazi perpetrator, and a gay American theologian—that reflect sincere attempts at introspective and retrospective self-investigation, often triggered by some wounding or rupture and followed by a transformative experience. The book takes seriously the vulnerability exposed in male self-disclosure while offering a critique of the religious and gendered rhetoric employed in such discourse. The religious imagination, it argues, allows men to talk about their intimate, flawed, and sinful selves without having to condemn themselves or to fear self-erasure. Herein lies the greatest promise of these confessions: by baring their souls to judgment, these writers may also transcend their self-imprisonment.
Anne McKnight
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816672851
- eISBN:
- 9781452947327
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816672851.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
This chapter focuses on the theme of confession, engaged by writers in the 1970s who opted to use buraku characters and settings as the focus of their works. It features Toson Shimazaki’s novel The ...
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This chapter focuses on the theme of confession, engaged by writers in the 1970s who opted to use buraku characters and settings as the focus of their works. It features Toson Shimazaki’s novel The Broken Commandment, which paved the way for the use of confessional writing in the depiction of buraku characters and examining their sense of belongingness within the state. The buraku activists who were offended by the text reacted to the realist descriptions, dubbed as the “outwardly legible signs,” distinguishing the buraku people, which are indicative of social discrimination. The chapter cites avant-garde poetry and leftist journals as examples of other genres containing the language of discrimination influenced by the theme of confession. These texts triggered activist fury as they further supported the heightened sense of relationship between the buraku identity and a culture of pathology.Less
This chapter focuses on the theme of confession, engaged by writers in the 1970s who opted to use buraku characters and settings as the focus of their works. It features Toson Shimazaki’s novel The Broken Commandment, which paved the way for the use of confessional writing in the depiction of buraku characters and examining their sense of belongingness within the state. The buraku activists who were offended by the text reacted to the realist descriptions, dubbed as the “outwardly legible signs,” distinguishing the buraku people, which are indicative of social discrimination. The chapter cites avant-garde poetry and leftist journals as examples of other genres containing the language of discrimination influenced by the theme of confession. These texts triggered activist fury as they further supported the heightened sense of relationship between the buraku identity and a culture of pathology.
