Confessional Crises and Cultural Politics in Twentieth-Century America

Dave Tell

• Publisher: Penn State University Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780271056289
• eBook ISBN: 9780271060224
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Confessional Crises and Cultural Politics in Twentieth-Century America revolutionizes how we think about confession and its ubiquitous place in American culture. It argues that the sheer act of labeling a text a confession has become one of the most powerful, and most overlooked, forms of intervening in American cultural politics. In the twentieth century alone, the genre of confession has profoundly shaped (and been shaped by) six of America's most intractable cultural issues: sexuality, class, race, violence, religion, and democracy.

Table of contents

• COVER Front
• Series Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Confessional Crises and Cultural Politics
• Notes to Introduction
• Chapter 1: Confession and Sexuality: True Story Versus Anthony Comstock
• Notes to Chapter 1
• Chapter 2: Confession and Class: A New True Story
• Notes to Chapter 2
• Chapter 3: Confession and Race: Civil Rights, Segregation, and the Murder of Emmett Till
• Notes to Chapter 3
• Chapter 4: Confession and Violence: William Styron’s Nat Turner
• Notes to Chapter 4
• Chapter 5: Confession and Religion: Jimmy Swaggart’s Secular Confession
• Notes to Chapter 5
• Chapter 6: Confession and Democracy: Clinton, Starr, and the Witch-hunt Tradition of American Confession
• Notes to Chapter 6
• Conclusion: James Frey and Twenty-first-century Confessional Culture
• Notes to Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• COVER Back