Stanton's 'Solitude of Self' as Public Confession

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Issue Date
2010-06Author
Tell, Dave
Publisher
Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
Type
Article
Article Version
Scholarly/refereed, author accepted manuscript
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Elizabeth Cady Stanton opened her now famous “Solitude of Self” by asserting her desire to make manifest the “individuality of each human soul.” Using Stanton’s attempt to display the human soul as a case study, I consider in this essay the capacities of language to disclose the self. I argue that, for Stanton, self-disclosure is fundamentally performative: the “Solitude of Self” evokes the “inner-being we call ourself” through a reliance on, and a subsequent violation of, a distinctively narrative logic. As this violation takes from the audience the sense of order that the narrative had theretofore provided, it puts the audience in a position where they, now shorn of narrative and the order it provided, can experience firsthand the solitude of self.
Description
This is an electronic version of an article published in the journal Communication Studies. The published version is available online at: www.tandfonline.com or http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10510971003603929
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Citation
Tell, Dave. “Stanton’s ‘Solitude of Self’ as Public Confession.” Communication Studies 61.2 (April-June 2010): 172-183. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10510971003603929
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