Shame: Social Research: An International Quarterly of the Social Sciences, Vol. 4

Questions surrounding the concept of shame address a wide range of issues: from its role in a given culture (ours and others) to whether there are religions in which it plays no role; from its portrayal in fiction, poetry, and myth to conventions of modesty in the history of art; and from its evolutionary emergence to whether it qualifies as an emotion and how it figures in psychoanalytic theory. The principle motivation for this special issue of Social Research, however, it the sense that we live in a culture that may be becoming shamefully shameless - in which shame may be dying, if not already dead. Is this true? If true, how did it happen, and why? What does it mean to be shameless, and what are the consequences? It this state of affairs likely to change? As the papers in this issue illustrate, an examination of shame can in fact lift cultural veils and reveal much about a society, and so the significance of the discussion presented in this issue extends well beyond these pages.Mack, Arien is the author of 'Shame: Social Research: An International Quarterly of the Social Sciences, Vol. 4', published 2003 under ISBN 9781933481098 and ISBN 1933481099.