Circuitous Journeys Modern Spiritual Autobiography

by Leigh, David J.

• ISBN13: 9780823219940
• ISBN10: 0823219941
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-01-01
• Publisher: Fordham University Press

Summary

Circuitous Journeys: Modern Spiritual Autobiography provides a close reading and analysis of ten major life stories by twentieth-century leaders and thinkers from a variety of religious and cultural traditions: Mohandas Gandhi, Black Elk, Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, C. S. Lewis, Malcolm X, Paul Cowan, Rigoberta Menchu, Dan Wakefield, and Nelson Mandela. The book uses approaches from literary criticism, developmental psychology (influenced by Erik Erikson, James Fowler, and Carol Gilligan), and spirituality (influenced by John S. Donne, Emile Griffin, Walter Conn, and Bernard Lonergan). Each text is read in the light of the autobiographical tradition begun by St. Augustine’s Confessions, but with a focus on distinctively modern and post-modern transformations of the self-writing genre. The twentieth-century context of religious alienation, social autonomy, identity crises and politics, and the search for social justice is examined in each text.

Author Biography

David J. Leigh is Professor of English at Seattle University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Preface	ix
Introduction	1	(31)
Thomas Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain	32	(24)
Dorothy Day's The Long Loneliness	56	(25)
The Psychology of Conversion in G. K. Chesteron and C. S. Lewis	81	(21)
The Dual Plot of Gandhi's An Autobiography	102	(35)
Malcolm X and the Black Muslim Search for the Ultimate	137	(25)
Black Elk Speaks: A Century Later	162	(16)
The Remaking of an American Jaw: Paul Cowan's An Orphan in History	178	(19)
I, Rigoberta Menchu: The Plotting of Liberation	197	(18)
Dan Wakefield's Returning	215	(15)
Retraveling the Century: Nelson Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom	230	(23)
Conclusion	253	(4)
Index	257