Blush: Faces of Shame

By Elspeth Probyn, Sydney: UNSW Press, 2005, 198 pages, paperback, $29.95. Reviewed by Zoe Anderson in the July 2005 issue.

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Shame, in its collective context, has been explored by many writers in recent years in very indirect ways. In the Australian cultural and political milieu shame seems to be the silent 'other' to which we defer and which we deny; a constant, shadowing us in debates on everything from the interaction between indigenous and 'white' Australian histories, to personal anxieties over bodies and self. In this work Probyn attempts to bring together varied manifestations of shame in (mostly) the Australian socio-cultural setting. In doing so, Probyn also riskily endeavours to utilise that troublesome area of 'the personal' within academic writing. Feminist theorists in particular have criticised the artificial binary created between 'rational' and so called 'emotional' or personal writing within scholarly works, and without directly addressing this issue, Probyn dives headfirst into the murkier, more vulnerable areas of private feeling and experience as she navigates the emotional content, experience and, as she argues, purpose of shame.

Combining literary theory, cultural theory, psychology and her own personal narratives, Probyn explores the visceral way in which shame is felt -- a corporeal expression of a vulnerable sensation. One that is also too easily cast as synonymous with guilt, as Probyn contends, shame has much deeper consequences for both the personal and the political. In this manner, the utility of shame may go beyond the 'blame' models often avoided because of their simplistic (and, as Probyn asserts, fleeting) effect. In doing so, Probyn argues for, and teases out, the complexities and subtleties of shame as evoked and inflicted within the body politic and one's personal and/or professional life.

Probyn covers many areas, relying at times on more superficial usage of particular disciplinary explanations for shame. She explores four main arenas in which shame can be evoked: the 'non-belonging' of the body in a foreign place, the occasional shaming of present day feminism, the shame surrounding personal family lineage -- in which her grandmother's writings are used to explore appropriated ethnicity within the colonial framework -- and the shame of the writer, in which Probyn focuses attention on the interaction between writer and subject.

Her explorations of the role of locale in evoking shame by the unspoken aspect of feeling 'out of place' and foreign are perhaps the most interesting and work the best within her argument. This is where Probyn taps (indirectly) into the large body of feminist theory concerned with the corporeality of lived experience and the refusal to neglect the body in post-modernist discussions of political and intensely private understandings of identity. Probyn here seems firmly, and with a sense of exposure, situated in this area of feminist and gender theory that refutes pure conceptuality, and posits herself openly (and with courage, for an academic) in the materiality of life and feeling. Whether this necessarily furthers the efficacy of her examination of shame at some points seems redundant; the use of the personal in exploring an emotive locale creates the vital and precise contextualisation of the subject. This careful positioning of the corporeal within the specificities of space is the delicate framework through which she then investigates further the way shame acts through and is inflicted on the body. By writing in this way, Probyn is attempting to viscerally draw in the reader and convey the emotion through an evocative personal connection.

Probyn endeavours to bridge the divide between theoretical academic writing and general accessibility -- something she achieves most often in her regular pieces in The Australian. Early on, she states that, 'This book is not a dissertation; it is an invitation to come exploring with me and to discover sidetracks of your own [...] With something as sensitive as shame, it's foolhardy to weigh in with ready-made theories or pronouncements. So I try not to'. (p xv) Such sentiments are seemingly the antithesis of an academic study, and reveal a lack of intent to be one; however it is difficult to know who the intended readership of such a book is meant to be. This book does not quite realise its desired aim. Using both a personal methodology and a personal subject matter -- in this case, an emotion or affect -- is a noble venture into two under-explored arenas, but still falls short of cogently illuminating the value of shame in the cultural and political milieu. Perhaps Probyn will interrogate these matters in a more detailed manner in future texts, bringing her obvious broad theoretical knowledge to bear more intensely on this important topic.

Citation

• Zoe Anderson. 'Review: Blush: Faces of Shame by Elspeth Probyn' [online]. Network Review of Books (Perth, Australian Public Intellectual Network), July 2005. Availability: <please cite the web address here> ISSN 1833-0932. [accessed 18 June 2013].

Back Cover Blurb

• How is shame essential to our humanity?
  
  With the rise of pride politics - national pride, gay pride, black pride, fat pride - shame, the 'sickness of the soul', has acquired a bad reputation. In Australia, shame has long been an integral part of Indigenous and non-Indigenous relations. It haunts us yet is rarely spoken about.
  
  In Blush, Elspeth Probyn contends that shame is a powerful resource in re-thinking who we are and who we want to be. When we refuse to acknowledge shame it goes underground and poisons our selves and our culture.
  
  Probyn argues that shame can be good for us. Painfully introspective, it demands that we question our actions and our relationship to others. The physical manifestation of shame, the blush, connects us to our humanity. What shames us says a great deal about our character as individuals and as a society, about our past and our desires for the future.
  
  Written in an engaging and personal style, Blush combines psychology and cultural criticism, sociology and popular science to present a unique perspective on debates about the ethics and emotions of identity.

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