The gift of shame
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The gift of shame
Suzanne Conklin Akbari Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ, USA.
Abstract This short confession looks back at the confessional mode of a 2009 article, ‘The Object of Devotion,’ on the impact of religious orientation on my scholarly formation, before turning to a different sort of self-examination: the moment of shame that is at once a source of pain and a generous gift. The inventory offered here concerns not religious orientation but the shame that arises from being wrong. It also casts light on changes that have come to our profession, where racist structures of thought and their administrative and social manifestations have become more visible than before. It’s not that our work environment has changed; rather, the assumptions that were there all along have become visible, and recognizing them – and responding to them – has become imperative. In this way, when I make a confession, and talk about my own shame, it’s in part the product of my own experience, but it is also the product of our common situation. This confession also looks forward to the fruitful outcomes of this experience, including collaborative workshops on indigenous pedagogy, on the role of indigenous story, and on the stories we tell about the land. postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies (2020) 11, 318–325. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41280-020-00165-w
‘Who Am I?’ I was about to say this: To confess, to make a confession, is to look into the mirror and describe what you see, in every painful, embarrassing detail. But then I stop and think, No, that’s a narcissistic move. You can’t talk about yourself, you can’t confess, without descending into egotism.
2020 Springer Nature Limited. 2040-5960
postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies www.palgrave.com/journals
Vol. 11, 2-3, 318–325
The gift of shame
But what value might there be in confession? Could confession be a gift to others, offering something of value? I think of Augustine, in the Confessions, always pulling up short with second thoughts, whittling away at his own ego, asking God to put him straight. I think about Montaigne, in his Essays, always changing his mind, always revising, himself and his book both always a work in progress. I think about the criminal, pressed to make a confession: the requirement to enumerate what you have done, what you believe, what you know. For me to confess would be to ask myself, ‘Who am I?’ I have to admit that sometimes I do ask that question, and what I produce is a list: A A A A A A
Muslim mother researcher, or a scholar, or a reader person who has animals half-German person bisexual person
The hierarchy is different, depending on what’s going on when I ask myself the question (‘Who am I?’), and sometimes things get left out or added. But it’s always a list. How can a person be only that, a list? Is it because a person is layered, like the skin of an onion, where you peel away layer upon layer to get at what lies hidden deep inside? In this metaphor, each term on the list would be another layer
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