Confessional Discourse Research Articles

Structural semantic features dominant in the poetics of Yu.V. Bondarev’s works about the Great Patriotic War (to the 100th anniversary of the birth)

The article aims to show the evolution of the significant structural semantic features dominant in the poetics of Yu.V. Bondarev’s works about the Great Patriotic War. The principal research methods are structural semantic and comparative-contrastive analysis. To achieve the goal, the study consistently reveals the specific features of the poetics of the writer’s early novellas "The Battalions Request Fire" and "The Last Shot", as well as the novel "The Hot Snow". Based on the comparison of the obtained results, the paper concludes that the poetics of the writer’s works about the Great Patriotic War evolved in the course of time. Moreover, specific forms of such changes are indicated. The dominant features of Yu.V. Bondarev’s poetics are the protagonist’s specific confessional discourse, the chronotope locality, the leitmotif opposition between the images of lyrical and tragic planes, the expressiveness of the eclectic detail, cinematographicity, sensory language, the semantic significance of the finales. These features are manifested in the writer’s early works about the Great Patriotic War, as well as in his novel "The Hot Snow". The novellas "The Battalions Request Fire" and "The Last Shots" are considered within the framework of the leading genre model of "lieutenant prose", i. e. the genre of the frontline lyric novella. "The Hot Snow" is studied as a lyric-epic novel about the Great Patriotic War. The novel retains some features of the frontline lyrical novella, while others are taken to a new level. In "The Hot Snow" novel, the confessional discourse is enhanced with a rational-analytical component; the chronotope of the work, while retaining its locality, acquires the specificity of a documentary one. Details (object, portrait, landscape, interior, psychological) are actively used, but at the same time they are generalised to a symbolic level. Yu.V. Bondarev’s cinematographic vision is enriched with new forms and techniques; the linguo-sensory system becomes intricate and includes components previously not used by the writer. The novel finale is not abstract, but conceptual. These dominant structural semantic features of the poetics of Yu. V. Bondarev’s works make it possible to determine the genesis of his novelistic creativity and conclude that the writer’s artistic thinking evolved.

Features of the social beliefs of the Orthodox Church and Christians of the Evangelical Faith

The article examines the peculiarities of social beliefs of the Orthodox Church and Christians of the Evangelical Faith and their reflection in educational practices. It is shown that the formation of social doctrines is one of the basic tasks of modern Christianity. Social doctrine systematizes and actualizes the role and significance of social beliefs of Christianity, in their essence multi-vector, multi-dimensionality, inte-gration as the main characteristics of the spiritual sphere of the church. Social doc-trines are based on various aspects of theological and ecclesiological beliefs. They can be expressions of the theological tradition’s response to historical problems, social transformations of the digital age, in the confessional discourse, and can also reflect the modern view of a certain church on the issue of the relationship between faith and reason, science and religion, and humanitarian security. Approaches to social beliefs may differ depending on the "confessional color" of a certain religious organization and the information support of this process. According to this study, the implementation of the social doctrines of Christianity is impossible without an analysis of their beliefs aimed at solving both social issues in general and educa-tional ones. The need to develop basic strategies of spiritual education is empha-sized, outline the priorities facing education in a secularized world, but also suggest the development of sustainable concepts in the direction of highlighting the confes-sional worldview regarding the challenges of modern humanitarianism. It is proposed to consider the peculiarities of social beliefs in the system of educational processes of the Orthodox Church and the Christian Church of the Evangelical Faith. The con-clusions emphasize that the social doctrine of the Ecumenical Patriarchate presup-poses a progressive attitude to science and technological progress, encourages the church to use the resources of technological progress and informational resources for preaching. The need for the introduction of an integrated approach in spiritual education, constant informational innovations in the field of training of qualified min-isters who are able to conduct missionary preaching activities taking into account the conditions of the time for an efficient educational process and humanitarian security in the context of transformations of the digital age is being updated.

Исповедальное слово в прозе Л. Андреева (рассказ «Мысль» и повесть «Мои записки»)

This paper examines the role of confessional discourse in Leonid Andreev’s “Thought” and “My Notes.” In these works, confession not only serves as a significant narrative device that creates a particular mode of psychological reality. It is also directly related to the interpretation of the meaning of the stories. On the one hand, the confessional intention presented in the texts shows the struggle to gain self-knowledge and the urgency of overcoming the isolation of one’s existence. On the other hand, it does not lead to the discovery of truth and only unveils its elusive quality. With a particular focus on the representation of existential consciousness and the realization of the poetics of play, this study examines, among others, the principle of dialogism and the significance of paratextual elements. The paper argues that the desire for selfdisclosure reflected in “Thought” and “My Notes” reveals the paradoxical nature of the confessional narrative, which is transformed into a certain kind of play, leading to selfdeception and the fictitious construction of identity.

(Post)confessional mode and psychological surveillance in The Crown and Fleabag

Contemporary television’s portrayals of psychotherapy reveal anxieties surrounding surveillance and intimate self-disclosure in clinical and therapeutic settings. This paper analyses two twenty-first century television series featuring therapy sessions that observe...

Contemporary Confessional Forms and Confessional Art

Within our twenty-first century confessional landscape, a new set of possibilities for confession has been realised which, in relation to the chronology of confessional art, expands on the political and social conditions visible in pre-millennial cultural politics. The confessional turn in postmodernity requires less of an emphasis on pre-modern frameworks of ritualised Christian confessional discourses. Taking into account the ubiquity of contemporary confessional forms (eg Facebook, Instagram, and the vlog/blogosphere), such historical terms of ritualised confession and its association to power appear almost archaic today. This article focuses on a framework of confessional art that explores a more direct mode of self-disclosure in order to examine self-representation and its relationship to subjectivity. As the boundaries between private and public space become increasingly problematised within this confessional landscape, this article posits that contemporary confessional art gives voice to displaced subjectivities to present a more complex politics of self.

The Decline of Comprehension in the Church of England, 1689–1750

AbstractFollowing several attempts to fashion a broad-based national church from the Church of England by reforming the Act of Uniformity (1662), the failed Comprehension Bill that accompanied the Toleration Act (1689) was the final such proposal tabled in Parliament. Although historians have examined moments when comprehension reappeared in eighteenth-century confessional discourse, less attention has been paid to connecting these moments within England's long Reformation and to explaining why the prospects for comprehension remained so dim. Its supporters claimed the Elizabethan via media in church and state to fashion a national church within a godly commonwealth by uniting Anglicans with “moderate” Dissenters. However, the High Church campaign against the practice of occasional conformity meant that comprehension ceased to be a viable political proposition by the time of the Tory landslide of 1710 and the passage of the Occasional Conformity Act (1711). The development of the culture of “free enquiry” among Dissenters further widened the gulf between them and the establishment, reinforcing the aspiration of the established church's Whig leaders for harmonious coexistence rather than unity. Despite its failure as a political proposition, Whig churchmen and moderate Dissenters continued to idealize comprehension due to their (albeit loosening) Hookerian commitment to unity in church and state.

Confessional Discourses, Radicalizing Traditions: On John Caputo and the Theological Turn

Abstract This article explores the theological turn through the work of John Caputo, who famously transitioned from a philosopher of religion to a “weak theologian,” and later as a “radical theologian.” In so doing it argues that Caputo’s work as a radical theologian is an attempt at a practical performance of religion without religion: he inhabits the discourse of theology while radicalizing the tradition against itself. This article will show the value of this theological approach and how Caputo needs to directly inhabit this discourse as a theologian – confessing to be a theologian, becoming one of “their own” – to change theology’s trajectory. This trajectorial shift is felt both inside the academy and within the church itself. Caputo’s transformation from a philosopher to a theologian is a move from a (philosophical) description to a (theological) prescription. It is a transition from theory to praxis, and he could not do this without inhabiting that praxis’ context and its discourses. In doing so, and perhaps unintentionally, Caputo surprisingly respects critics like Dominique Janicaud, whose strident critique against the theological turn was at its apotheosis during Caputo’s transition: Caputo never ventures into crypto-theology nor does he sneak in prescription under the guise of a “phenomenology,” as many philosophers of religion are wont to do. Rather, he sees that one needs to embody the discourse to change it, which, ironically, is a position that would gain the approval of both Dominique Janicaud and traditional theology.

Typology of Religious Vocabulary in Dialects of Old Believers of Latin America

The study is devoted to the religious vocabulary in the dialects of the Old Believers in order to identify confessional and dialectal characteristics. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that for the first time a description of the religious vocabulary of the Old Believers-chapels of Latin America is carried out. A review of scientific literature has been carried out, which describes various aspects of the study of the religious vocabulary of the Russian language, including dialects. The relevance of the work is due to the need for theoretical comprehension and differentiation of the concepts of “religious vocabulary” and “confessional vocabulary”. The author’s definition of the term “religious vocabulary” as a hyperonym in relation to the terminology related to the sphere of religion is given. The material was written texts of the Old Believer Danila Zaitsev. Semantic and contextual analysis, comparative analysis of the semantics of Old Believer religious terminology relative to Christian terminology, as well as the linguo-theological method were selected as research methods. A new approach to the classification of religious vocabulary is proposed. It is concluded that four groups are distinguished in the vocabulary of Old Believer’s dialects: common vocabulary in a religious sense; common Christian vocabulary in confessional discourse; confessional vocabulary as a marker of a specific confession; confessional and dialectal vocabulary in Old Believer dialects.

The Crisis of Confessionalism: Lebanon between Tradition and Modernity

This article contains the analysis of the Lebanese protests that started in October 2019 and attempts to explain their background. The main argument is that the Lebanese consociational system is undergoing a deep crisis. There is a growing disparity between the existing political system and ongoing social changes. The article argues that the reason for the socio-political tensions lies in the clash between two distinctive and competing discourses about the future shape of the Lebanese political system: the confessional discourse and the secular or reformist discourse.

PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE: PRAGMATIC PRESUPPOSITION IN MOTIVATIONAL SPEECH WITHIN DISCOURSE AND ITS RELEVANCE OF MOTIVATION IN TEACHING LEARNING PROCESS TO REACH GOALS

This research was taken from online media in the form of a speech on a YouTube channel called the English Speeches Channel featuring an inspiring woman named Muniba Mazari Baloch. She is a Pakistani artist, model, activist, motivational speaker, singer, social reformer, and television host. Her motivational speech is titled we all are Perfectly Imperfect. This research accompaniment three research questions by analyzing the types of presuppositions contained in Muniba Mazari's speech and determining the type of presupposition in his speech that comes up with the confession discourse function, then knowing how far her confessions influences her audiencess through what he delivers. The research method used in this research is descriptive qualitative by analyzing several utterances in her speech, through two approaches of theory pragmatic presupposition and confessional discourse analysis. The results showed that Muniba Mazari used all types of pragmatic presuppositions (Existential, Factive, Non-Factive, Lexical, Structural, and Counterfactual). Through this type of presupposition, Muniba Mazari also brings out the function of confessional discourse. The function of confessional discourse contained in her speech is a therapeutic, didactic, and interrogatory function. During the research, researchers found the main threat from the combination of these two theories is the strength of Motivational Assertion. The main threat that became the main idea as the direction of Muniba Mazari's speech in motivating her audiences. Then, this main thread also asserts how powerful Muniba Mazari's speech was. In this context, the results bring about optimism, achievable objectives, passion, and confidence. Finally, Muniba Mazari's speech entitled We Are Perfectly Imperfect which contains many moral messages can be said to be a motivational speech. It can be manifested in learning-teaching process. The result of combining these two theories produces the main thread that can be applied by several teachers in motivating their students in the learning-teaching process.

RELIGION LITERACY AS A FORMATION CONDITION KAZAKHSTAN'S CIVIL DISCOURSE

The formation of a civil community takes place in the process of statehood formation and involves the development of a system of communication between communities and social groups that have different characteristics of economic, ethnic, linguistic, confessional, settlement, and demographic plans. In the light of the above, one of the most important functions of the state is to promote the formation of a civil discourse that is understandable to all social groups without exception. Depending on the characteristics of the community, the civil discourse can coincide with the national, confessional discourse or represent a supra-corporate, supra-group integral. Since the 2000s, in Kazakhstan (which also reflects the global trend), concepts that set the principles of orientation of modern man in the post – secular world-a world in which a large-scale return of religion to everyday life and the practices of individuals, social communities and institutions began to actively penetrate into civil discourse. To fully participate in the communications conditioned by the discourse of this type, individuals need religious literacy. The request for its formation is received by the education system, which acts as an instinct for the socialization of individuals. The article examines the transformation of Kazakhstan’s civil discourse from the point of view of the presence in it of concepts reflecting the principles of state-confessional relations at various stages of Kazakhstan’s development over the years of independence. The authors undertake a special analysis of what challenges the education system faces and how it solves them in the context of the formation of civil discourse.

A Genealogical Analysis of the Medical Model of Problem Gambling

By applying Foucault’s genealogical approach, this article understands the ascension of the medical model of problem gambling as a happenstance and contingent effect of a new form of social control (biopower). The investigation reveals the cumulative effect of some of the heterogeneous components surrounding the medical model’s creation: discourses; institutions; laws; regulatory decisions; administrative measures; scientific proposition, and philanthropic, moral, and philosophical arguments. In the process, it becomes apparent that the medical model is an effect of a form of control that is embedded in the population itself as a norm and follows the schemata of confessional discourse. This power is disciplining individual bodies and regulating populations towards normality by making problem gamblers critically examine themselves and discursively reveal the results. However, the present subjectivity for problem gamblers (i.e., how they understand themselves and how they are understood by those who would improve them) is an effect of the type of power contained in the confession as well. A certain form of subjectivity is created by admitting ‘I am powerless over gambling.’ While the language problem gamblers use to describe themselves is a mere effect of power, it nevertheless determines how they think of themselves and their relationship with gambling.

Troubled Origins: Accounting for Oneself (Derrida with Botho Strauß and Didier Eribon)

Even after the concept of ‘origin’ has been called into question, a troubling wish to speak of origins persists, especially in the narrative act of accounting for one's own origins in confessional discourse. Here, the self encounters the limits of its narratibility, even as it interrogates how, in the Nietzschean sense, it became what it is. This essay explores the question of troubled origins by placing Nietzsche's Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What One Is and Derrida's Monolingualism of the Other; or, the Prosthesis of Origin in syntactical relation with Didier Eribon's Returning to Reims and Botho Strauß's Herkunft ( Origin). The essay meditates on the ways in which a world-oriented longing for identification persists long after the ideas of identity and self-identity have been bid farewell. If there is a kind of survival to be espied in textual acts of confronting one's troubled origins, such survival would have to travel through a language that unfolds on the far side of any conventional identity-thinking. By the same token, this language could never simply resist the conceptual and rhetorical temptation powerfully exerted by the seductive processes of identification. Derrida, Strauß, and Eribon, each in their own idiomatic way, implore us to question just what such textual acts of commemorative survival imply for a thinking to come.

Tabloid female sex confessions and everyday pro-sex feminism: The case of the Apple Daily Taiwan

This article construes the reader-contributed female sex confessions of a Taiwanese tabloid newspaper as contingent cultural instruments, looking into how these confessions are implicated in the formulation of sex-positive feminism. The confessional discourse is interpreted as autobiographical acts with dialogic overtones. The article argues that the highly commercial and communal form of the tabloid confessions fortuitously facilitates positive discourse of female sexuality in a society in transition. It is demonstrated that part of the pro-sex feminism promoted by cultural elites, especially post-feminist discourse of entitlement, is echoed in the confessions. However, dealing with life situations of ordinary people, the community-based tabloid feminism differs from the model discourses in its pragmatism. Although female sexual desires are fully justified, they are balanced in consideration of other necessities, such as security, stability, or romantic love.

РЕЛИГИОЗНО-ПОЛИТИЧЕСКИЕ УГРОЗЫ ГОСУДАРСТВУ В ЗАПАДНОЙ ПОЛИТОЛОГИИ И ФИЛОСОФИИ

This article is devoted to an attempt to analyze religious threats, which the authors believe is not sufficiently developed in studies on religious security. The analysis was carried out within the framework of the methodology of the socio-philosophical approach, which rejects the version of the metaphysical religious threat from religious organizations. This analysis was carried out by the authors based on the theoretical principles of the theory of the social evolution of religion M. Weber, T. Parsons, theory of religious conflict K. Marx, R. Darendorf and theory of social adaptation of religion J. Richardson, B. R. Wilson. The results of the analysis showed that in the second half of the twentieth century the comprehension of religious threats took place within the confessional, legal, and psychological discourses based on the metaphysical opposition of “yours” and “aliens” (F. Conway, J. Siglman, R. D. Lifton, M. Singer, T. Patrick, J. MacDowell, W. Martin). The general direction of criticism of these discourses was the indication that the illegal actions of extremist organizations are usually determined by their political and economic goals, and not by the content of religious texts, which led to the requirement to distinguish between violent actions and the content of religious doctrines. Therefore, as the authors show, modern analysts, including E. Barker, J. Melton, J. Richardson, R. stark, and M. Introvigne, prove that the challenge and conflict between religious associations can not only be considered as a reflection of threats caused by religions, but also as a manifestation of competition within the confessional space. At the same time, the fears of threats spread in the course of this struggle are very important for the social practice of religions seeking to improve social policy

A Two- and a Threefold Cord

Abstract Religious coexistence and even mixed marital unions were an undeniable reality in many parts of early modern Europe. Despite occasional harsh criticisms by the clergy, church authorities often had no choice than to silently accept religious diversity as an embarrassing fact of life. This article addresses the rare case of the Danzig Lutheran preacher Martin Statius (1589–1655), who tried to articulate well-balanced guidelines for the question of how to deal with religious diversity in public and private spaces. In order to create a theological framework for the discussion of this problem, Statius distinguished between three forms of human love: “natural, civic and spiritual.” Categorizing love and friendship in this manner enabled Statius to bridge the deep gap between theological ideals and the unruly reality of everyday life and offers an illuminating insight into confessional discourses and their relation to the social reality in multiconfessional cities.

Torment Porn or Feminist Witch Hunt: Apprehensions About the #MeToo Movement on /r/AskReddit

This article argues that #MeToo posts are transgressive and can be understood as a case of confessional discourse that has the potential to empower women around the world rather than inspiring shame. Due to its public nature, #MeToo also challenges existing frameworks for understanding sexual relationships in the United States. This critical discourse analysis of the response to the #MeToo movement over 9 months (2017–2018) on the Reddit community AskReddit surfaced fears about how the movement is redefining normal sexual behavior. By inventorying the knowledge claims produced across four question and answer comment threads, important shifts in subject positions and discursive frames show that under the guise of inclusive rhetoric and expert discourse, many Reddit respondents fear their past behavior will be reconstituted as abusive. Rape myths also appeared in the discourse as a backlash against the #MeToo movement.

Guilt, Self-Awareness, and the Good Will in Kierkegaard’s Confessional Discourses

The specific aim of this article is to focus on Kierkegaard’s confessional discourses and to examine his appreciation for the experience of guilt—the feeling of guilt and the acknowledgment of guilt—in a person’s efforts to act with a good will, or what he calls ‘purity of heart’. The article offers an interpretation of what Kierkegaard means by the ‘purity of heart’ that guilt serves, and it makes an argument that in this service to ‘purity of heart’ the relationship between guilt and self-awareness is especially significant. For Kierkegaard, without the subjective feeling of guilt and without a self-reflective endorsement of that feeling, a person cannot overcome a bad or divided will; a person who strives to have a good will is a person who is able rightly to acknowledge, appropriate or endorse his or her guilt. Furthermore, Kierkegaard’s claim is not simply that this acknowledgment of guilt is a necessary precondition for a good will but that it is itself a quintessential action of a good will. The article concludes with a note of caution that while Kierkegaard does not want to make guilt a final word about a person, a word that overshadows grace and pardon, he is also very wary of the ways people fail to take their own guilt seriously and thereby forfeit the benefits of its self-disclosing power.

Philosophy of Theology as a Field of Philosophy of Religion: Determination of the Discipline Status

In the article the author came to the conclusion that theology requires a special philosophical study, which the philosophy of theology is able to implement. At the same time, depending on the consensus accepted by the scientific community, the philosophy of theology can optimally be part of the philosophy of religion as an independent branch of philosophical knowledge; It can also be a subdivision of the philosophy of religion as a branch of academic religious studies; can perform special reflexive tasks in the structure of philosophical theology. The subject of the philosophy of theology is the diversity of religious manifestations of religious, religious-philosophical and theological knowledge; the available religious theology concepts of theology; philosophical reflections on theology. In all cases, the philosophy of theology must be a critical, reflexive knowledge of theology, a set of philosophical methods and approaches for the comprehensive study of theology as religious knowledge, confessional discourse, cultural phenomenon, academic discipline.

Tobacco Capitalism, an Afterword: Open Letters and Open Wounds in Anthropology

AbstractThis open letter to a North Carolina tobacco grower reflects on important ethical, methodological, and political issues in ethnography. Addressing the informant in the modes of apologetic and confessional discourse, critical self‐reflection, and reparative work, this letter offers reflexive thoughts on inevitabilities of friendship and intimacy in ethnography and analytical insights into the possibilities and pitfalls of politically‐motivated anthropological scholarship on sensitive issues of culture and power, as informants critically read and rebuke publications. This letter is also an effort to humbly reconnect with an estranged informant across an intensely divided America.