| Description |
1 online resource (254 pages) |
| Physical Medium |
polychrome |
| Description |
text file |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Contents |
Discovering "truth" -- Awakenings -- Dimensions of autobiographical work -- The awakening-story formula -- The semiotic stricture of awakening stories -- The awakener as a social type of storyteller -- Autobiographical communities and autobiographical fields -- Methods and data -- Outline of the book -- Awakenings: a cultural history -- Zarathustra -- Plato's allegory of the cave -- Foundational religious awakenings -- Foundational political awakenings -- Freud and the psychoanalytic case study -- Late modern awakenings -- Mnemonic revisions and cultural contentions -- Formulaic mnemonic revisions -- Autobiographical memory and cultural contention -- Shaping the collective mnemonic record -- Shaping the cultural milieu for personal memory -- Vocabularies of liminality -- Sociomental express elevators -- Sociomental staircases -- Combining elevators and staircases -- The temporally divided self -- Portraying the temporally divided self -- Culture and autobiographical narrative. |
| Summary |
The chorus of the Christian hymn "Amazing Grace" reads, "I once was lost, but now am found, / Was blind but now I see." Composed by a minister who formerly worked as a slave trader, the song expresses his experience of divine intervention that ultimately caused him to see the error of his ways. This theme of personal awakening is a feature of countless stories throughout history, where the "lost" and the "blind" are saved from darkness and despair by suddenly seeing the light. In Seeing the Light, Thomas DeGloma explores such accounts of personal awakening, in stories that range from the discovery of a religious truth to remembering a childhood trauma to embracing a new sexual orientation. He reveals a common social pattern: When people discover a life-changing truth, they typically ally with a new community. Individuals then use these autobiographical stories to shape their stances on highly controversial issues such as childhood abuse, war and patriotism, political ideology, human sexuality, and religion. Thus, while such stories are seemingly very personal, they also have a distinctly social nature. Tracing a wide variety of narratives through nearly three thousand years of history, Seeing the Light uncovers the common threads of such stories and reveals the crucial, little-recognized social logic of personal discovery. |
| Local Note |
eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America |
| Subject |
Autonomy (Psychology)
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Autonomy (Psychology) |
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Self-actualization (Psychology)
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Self-actualization (Psychology) |
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Religious awakening.
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Religious awakening. |
| Genre/Form |
Electronic books.
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| Other Form: |
Print version: DeGloma, Thomas. Seeing the Light : The Social Logic of Personal Discovery. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, ©2014 9780226175744 (OCoLC)877077652 |
| ISBN |
9780226175911 (electronic book) |
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022617591X (electronic book) |
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022617574X |
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9780226175744 |
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9780226175744 (cloth ; alkaline paper) |
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9780226175881 (paperback ; alkaline paper) |
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