Compelling Confessions

The Politics of Personal Disclosure

Suzanne Diamond - Contributions by Lisa A. Baird; Kathy Farquharson; Glenn Freeman; Deborah H. Holdstein; Adrian Jones; G Daniel Lassiter; Matthew J. Lindberg; Richard E. Miller; Shannon K. Pinegar; Dawn Skorczewski; Karina Smith; Christy Rieger; Lezlee J. Ware and ChandraWells

Compelling Confessions: The Politics of Personal Disclosure is a collection of essays whose shared purpose is to offer an accessible interdisciplinary exploration of the social dynamics behind confessional discourse. As various contributors to this collection demonstrate, confession is ubiquitous in contemporary culture, not only within psychological or therapeutic frameworks or literary analysis, but also in internet discussion groups, in the criminal justice system, in political rhetoric, in so-called "reality" and interview-style television programming, in writing pedagogy and, increasingly, in the testimonial strain observable in contemporary scholarship.

Yet, "telling one's story" raises questions, not only about authorial intent or authenticity, but also about the pressures disclosure can impose upon its audiences. Far less ubiquitous than confessions themselves, as these contributors suggest, are the critical tools that general audiences might employ in order to better evaluate the rhetoric of personal disclosure. It is, in fact, the shortage of such tools – responses and procedures that could be stated plainly and implemented by any reader or viewer – that Compelling Confessions sets out to address.

University Press Copublishing Division / Fairleigh Dickinson University Press

Pages: 230 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9½

978-1-61147-042-0 • Hardback • December 2010 • $113.00 • (£87.00)

978-1-61147-043-7 • eBook • December 2010 • $107.00 • (£82.00)

Subjects: Social Science / Research, Language Arts & Disciplines / Communication Studies, Language Arts & Disciplines / Rhetoric

Compelling Confessions

The Politics of Personal Disclosure

Hardback

eBook

Summary

Compelling Confessions: The Politics of Personal Disclosure is a collection of essays whose shared purpose is to offer an accessible interdisciplinary exploration of the social dynamics behind confessional discourse. As various contributors to this collection demonstrate, confession is ubiquitous in contemporary culture, not only within psychological or therapeutic frameworks or literary analysis, but also in internet discussion groups, in the criminal justice system, in political rhetoric, in so-called "reality" and interview-style television programming, in writing pedagogy and, increasingly, in the testimonial strain observable in contemporary scholarship.

Yet, "telling one's story" raises questions, not only about authorial intent or authenticity, but also about the pressures disclosure can impose upon its audiences. Far less ubiquitous than confessions themselves, as these contributors suggest, are the critical tools that general audiences might employ in order to better evaluate the rhetoric of personal disclosure. It is, in fact, the shortage of such tools – responses and procedures that could be stated plainly and implemented by any reader or viewer – that Compelling Confessions sets out to address.

Details

University Press Copublishing Division / Fairleigh Dickinson University Press

Pages: 230 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9½

978-1-61147-042-0 • Hardback • December 2010 • $113.00 • (£87.00)

978-1-61147-043-7 • eBook • December 2010 • $107.00 • (£82.00)

Subjects: Social Science / Research, Language Arts & Disciplines / Communication Studies, Language Arts & Disciplines / Rhetoric

Author

Suzanne Diamond is associate professor of English at Youngstown State University.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Acknowledgments
Chapter 2 Foreword: Confession as an Uncontrolled Substance: An Introduction
Chapter 3 Chapter 1: Scripted Subjectivity: The Politics of Personal Disclosure
Chapter 4 Chapter 2: Personal Disclosure and Public Discourse in Creative Nonfiction
Chapter 5 Chapter 3: Escaping Panopticon: Vision and Visibility in the Memoirs of Elizabeth Wurtzel
Chapter 6 Chapter 4: Confessional Poetry and National Identity: John Berryman's Self as Nation
Chapter 7 Chapter 5: Oprah on the Couch: Franzen, Foucault, and the Book Club Confessions
Chapter 8 Chapter 6: Understanding the False-Confession Phenomenon
Chapter 9 Chapter 7: Rhetoric's Inescapable Grasp: Strategic Disclosure and the Moment of Truth
Chapter 10 Chapter 8: Waiting Tables, Writing Lives: The "Truth" of Personal Experience in Students' Academic Writing
Chapter 11 Chapter 9: From Confession to Testimony: Refigureing Trauma in the Classroom
Chapter 12 Chapter 10: Sister Confessor: The Selection and Shaping of Testimonies in Sistren's Bellywoman Bangarang and Lionheart Gal
Chapter 13 Chapter 11: The Vagina Posse: Confessional Community in Online Infertility Journals
Chapter 14 Notes on Contributors
Chapter 15 Index

Reviews

The strength of this collection lies in a number of fine essays -- including one written by Diamond herself -- on issues connected to ethics and confession in the areas of pedagogy and public life. ... The better essays in Diamond's collection go a long way towards telling the rest of us how important the study of rhetoric is to the development of criticism and theory about life narratives of many kinds.
— Biography