Cultural Perspectives on Shame

Each essay in this volume provides a cultural perspective on shame. More specifically, each chapter focuses on the question of how a culture can differentially affect experiences of shame for members of that culture. As a collection, this volume provides a cross-cultural perspective on shame, highlighting the various similarities and differences of experiences of shame across cultures. In Part 1, each contributor focuses primarily on how shame is theorized in a non-English-speaking culture, and addresses how the science of shame ought to be pursued, how it ought to identify its object of study, what methods are appropriate for a rigorous science of shame, and how a method of study can determine or influence a theory of shame. In Part 2, each contributor is primarily concerned with a cultural practice of shame, and address how shame is related to a normative understanding of our self as a person and an individual member of a community, how culture and politics affect the value and import of shame, and what the relationship between culture and politics is in the construction of shamed identities. Cultural Perspectives on Shame will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in cross-cultural philosophy, philosophy of emotion, moral psychology, and the social sciences.

Cecilea Mun is a disabled, Korean-American philosopher. She is the author of Interdisciplinary Foundations for the Science of Emotion: Unification without Consilience (2021), the editor of and contributing author to the Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Shame: Methods, Theories, Norms, Cultures, and Politics (2019), the founding editor-in-chief of the Journal of Philosophy of Emotion, and the founding director of the Society for Philosophy of Emotion.

Introduction Cecilea Mun Part 1: Theorizing the Concept of Shame 1. Semantic Categories of Korean Words of Shame: Embarrassment, Humiliation, and Guilt Bongrae Seok 2. lajjA: Philosophical, Psychological, and Literary Perspectives from India Dharm P. S. Bhawuk 3. The Concept of Shame and Its Reception in the Medieval Islamic Tradition Josh Hayes 4. Defining the Construct of -aya': A Multi-Method Approach Faris Albugami and Dharm P. S. Bhawuk 5. Shame and Liberation: Emilio Uranga and the Critical Phenomenology of Shame Francisco Gallegos Part 2: Shame in Practice 6. Shame, Vulnerability, and Change Jing Iris Hu 7. Shame from a Middle Eastern Perspective Rebecca Merkin 8. Configuring Smart-Shaming Culture in the Philippines Hazel T. Biana 9. Shame and Circumcision in Africa Wafula Yenjela 10. To Be is to Be Ashamed: Scheler's Phenomenology of Jewish Assimilation Adrian Switzer