Shame and Shamelessness: The Craft of Confessional Writing

(4 Credits)

What are the functions of confession in creative nonfiction writing, and whom should confession serve? First-person narratives are the lifeblood of twelve-step programs. Roman law required confession, often forced, to legitimize the legal process. Foucault claims the West relies on confession for the production of truth. Do expressions of the shameful in the lyric essay work similarly to legitimate the writer? Perhaps we doubt we have the authority to claim a reader's sympathy unless we are performing self-abasement – or perhaps confession allows our audiences access to experiences of self-identification and relief as they confront shames of their own while reading. In an age of post-colonial guilt and racial melancholy, of persisting gender injustice and hostility to neurodiversity, might confession provide a way to address structural problematics that Western modernity seems founded upon? How can the act of confessing help writers to reclaim the power of shamelessness, reconfiguring social expectations along the way? What of allyship and the burden readers bear in "hearing" a confession? In this course, we will read across cultures and produce creative nonfiction writing that diversely embodies the confessional.