Book excerpt: This book is a genealogical study of confession. Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault as well as the history of Western confessional writings from Ancient Greece to contemporary pop culture, this book challenges the transhistorical and commonsense views of confession as an innate impulse resulting in the psychological liberation of the confessing subject. On the contrary, confessional desire is argued to be contingent and constraining, and alternatives to confessional subjectivity are explored.