ABSTRACT
In the fi rst part of this chapter I will continue discussing the history of confession, starting where the previous chapter left off, or with the beginning of the modern era, the period which concerns Foucault in his critique of confession in The History of Sexuality: An Introduction. Once more I will follow Foucault quite far in my discussion of modern confessional practices, and yet I also wish to problematize aspects of his analysis and to consider features of confession which he does not examine. In particular, while Foucault situates confession in the history of technologies for producing truth, the second and third sections of this chapter will draw on the writings of Paul de Man, Jacques Derrida, and Peter Brooks in order to examine the close relation between confession and untruth, and the phenomenon of false confessions, particularly in the realm of law. Moreover, while Foucault and much of this chapter will have focused on the problematic pleasures of confession, the fi nal section of this chapter will consider its displeasures.
