Biography & Autobiography Political
Scenes of Shame
Psychoanalysis, Shame, and Writing
- Publisher
- State University of New York Press
- Initial publish date
- Oct 1998
- Category
- Political
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9780791439760
- Publish Date
- Oct 1998
- List Price
- $45.95
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Description
Explores the role of shame as an important affect in the complex psychodynamics of literary and philosophical works.
The significance of shame as a critical human emotion has come to be recognized in the fields of psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, and psychology. Scenes of Shame brings this body of theory to bear on literary and philosophical representations of shame. The contributors explore the role of shame as an important affect in the psychodynamics of a wide range of literary and philosophical works, including essays on Kierkegaard, Hawthorne, George Eliot, Nietzsche, Lawrence, Faulkner, Sexton, and Toni Morrison. The book also includes an analysis of the problem of shame in student lifewriting in the classroom, and testifies to the importance of affect in philosophy and literature, as well as to the way in which imaginative writers can clarify and enrich our understanding of an emotion that, as Silvan Tomkins claims, "strikes deepest" into the human heart.
About the authors
Joseph Adamson is a professor in the Department of English and the Comparative Literature Program at McMaster University.
Hilary Clark was born and lived in Vancouver until 1990. She taught English at the University of Saskatchewan from 1990-2015. Now retired, she lives in Victoria, BC, with much more time to write. Her first book More Light won the 1999 Pat Lowther Award and the 1999 Saskatchewan Book Award for Poetry. Her book The Dwelling of Weather was shortlisted for the 2003 Saskatchewan Book Award for Poetry (Anne Szumigalski Poetry Award) and 2003 Saskatoon Book Award
Editorial Reviews
"This book has something for everybody. On the one hand it introduces the reader to the depth and importance of an important emotion'shame. On the other hand, this attention to shame suggests original approaches to the work of well-known poets, novelists, and philosophers." — Marshall Alcorn, George Washington University
"The topic is central to psychoanalytic studies and literary criticism. In fact, I see a good chance that this book could break new ground in criticism, thus becoming a frequently cited work. As I read the book, I realized how significant shame is in the work of many writers who are not even mentioned here?e.g., Coleridge, Conrad, Dickens, and, most of all, Doestoevsky." — Daniel W. Ross, Columbus State University
