Confessions of the Instant: Autobiographical Immediacy, Secularity, and the Conditions of Belonging

This article examines the valorization of immediacy at the intersection of autobiographical form, secular normativity, and neoliberal cultural logics, through a case study of Lale Gül’s debut novel Ik Ga Leven (2021) and its afterlife in the Netherlands. Building on Kornbluh (2024. Immediacy or, the Style of too Late Capitalism . London: Verso) theorization of immediacy as a dominant style of late capitalism, the article reframes immediacy as a secular cultural technology, one that organizes regimes of legibility, recognition, and moral authority while positing silence and opacity as suspect. Situating this demand within genealogies of Western secularity shaped by Protestant ideals of sincerity and transparency and confessional practices of self-exposure, the analysis shows how immediacy functions as a normative expectation within contemporary multicultural politics, particularly in relation to minoritized subjects. Through a close reading of Ik Ga Leven and its reception, the article argues that autobiographical immediacy operates as both credential and constraint, authorizing the critique and visibility it appears to reward, even as it narrows the conditions under which difference becomes intelligible and valued. Ultimately, the article aims to contribute to discussions in literary studies, secularity, and cultural theory by showing how the contemporary demand for immediacy serves as a political apparatus of inclusion and exclusion within European liberal-secular imaginaries.