Unsticking Shame: Considering Lived Experience and Processes of Overcoming

Taking the Braving Body Shame conference, which featured women discussing their experiences with shame, as a case study, this paper addresses what women do with their affective experiences. The paper examines videos from the Braving Body Shame conference to discuss how participants frame shame as a generative, recursive process of overcoming that stems from a recognition of their subjectivity. This paper offers one way of complicating our scholarly understanding of shame to avoid the flattening of affect and highlights the manifold ways individuals cope and seek empowerment within oppressive systems

Duke Scholars

Author Hannah Taylor Thompson Writing Program