Textual Intimacy: Autobiography and Religious Identities

by Wesley A. Kort

Overview

Given its 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 with a meditation on several meanings of the word assumption.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813932774
Publisher:	University of Virginia Press
Publication date:	05/23/2012
Series:	Studies in Religion and Culture
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Wesley A. Kort, Professor of Religion at Duke University, is the author of Place and Space in Modern Fiction.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction 1

Part I Theoretical

1 Telling You Who I Am 11

2 Narrative and Self-Accounts 37

3 Disclosing a Religious Identity 58

Part II Critical

4 Religious Debtors 87

5 Religious Dwellers 119

6 Religious Diviners 147

Part III Personal

7 Moving Out: Grounding a Religious Identity 177

8 On My Own: Taking on a Religious Identity 197

9 Looking Ahead: Religious Identity as Being Received 219

Notes 237

Index 249

Editorial Reviews

Textual Intimacy is a fine book. It weaves together in a unique and creative way theories of religion and life writing, criticism of recent memoirs and autobiographies, and the author’s narrative of his still-evolving religious identity.

John D. Barbour

This innovative work of religion and literature by Kort (Duke Univ.) provides a careful analysis of different types of American religious identities that emerge from autobiographical narratives. Impressively, this ambitious thesis buids coherently out of three very different parts of the text, each of which offers insightful distinctions that expand the scope of the book beyond its stated range without overwhelming it.... Accessible, innovative, and challenging.

CHOICE

In this humane and gracious study, Wesley Kort writes with an unusual and attractive openness, not to say candor, that invites his reader into the processes of his own deliberation and evaluation. This is a splendid book.

Giles Gunn

" Textual Intimacy is a fine book. It weaves together in a unique and creative way theories of religion and life writing, criticism of recent memoirs and autobiographies, and the author’s narrative of his still-evolving religious identity. "—John D. Barbour, St. Olaf College

"In this humane and gracious study, Wesley Kort writes with an unusual and attractive openness, not to say candor, that invites his reader into the processes of his own deliberation and evaluation. This is a splendid book. "—Giles Gunn, University of California, Santa Barbara

"This innovative work of religion and literature by Kort (Duke Univ.) provides a careful analysis of different types of American religious identities that emerge from autobiographical narratives. Impressively, this ambitious thesis buids coherently out of three very different parts of the text, each of which offers insightful distinctions that expand the scope of the book beyond its stated range without overwhelming it.... Accessible, innovative, and challenging. "—author of CHOICE

From the Publisher