Textual intimacy : autobiography and religious identities / Wesley A. Kort.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kort, Wesley A.

Series:

Studies in religion and culture (Charlottesville, Va.)

Studies in religion and culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Spiritual journals--Authorship.

Spiritual journals.

Autobiography--Religious aspects.

Autobiography.

Physical Description:

252 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Charlottesville : University of Virginia Press, [2012]

Summary:

Given its natural affinity with questions of identity, autobiography offers a way into the interior space between author and reader, especially when writers define themselves in terms of religion. In his exploration of this "textual intimacy," Wesley Kort begins with a theorization of what it means to say who one is and how one's self-account as a religious person stands in relation to other forms of self-identification. He then provides a critical analysis of autobiographical texts by nine contemporary American writers-including Maya Angelou, Philip Roth, and Anne Lamott-who give religion a positive place in their accounts of who they are. Finally, in disclosing his own religious identity, Kort concludes his journey with a meditation on several meanings of the single word assumption. Book jacket.

Contents:

Telling you who I am

Narrative and self-accounts

Disclosing a religious identity

Religious debtors

Religious dwellers

Religious diviners

Moving out: grounding a religious identity

On my own: taking on a religious identity

Looking ahead: religious identity as being received.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780813932767

0813932769

9780813932774

0813932777

9780813932781

0813932785

OCLC:

769141400