Unbelief : navigating fundamentalism and questioning belief systems in memoir : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Creative Writing at Massey University, New Zealand. EMBARGOED until 21 November 2025.
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Date
2022
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Massey University
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Abstract
How can writers of creative nonfiction, particularly memoir, write in a way that questions a belief system without insisting upon ‘their’ version and therefore creating a new belief system in its place? This thesis consists of a work of creative nonfiction memoir, Unbelief (80%), and an accompanying critical essay, ‘Questioning belief systems and navigating “memory fundamentalism” in Tara Westover’s Educated’ (20%). In Unbelief I tell the story of growing up in, questioning, and eventually discarding fundamentalist Christianity. The memoir includes experiences such as undergoing ‘spiritual warfare’ (exorcism), Bible-centric sex education, and praying to angels for protection. In Unbelief I explore this transition away from a belief system through a three-part structure, across time from 1992 to 2000, and across three different place settings. Unbelief is intentionally written as a condensed version of what I intend will become a full memoir. The supporting critical essay discusses Tara Westover’s Educated (2018), a memoir of her upbringing in a fundamentalist Mormon subculture in Buck’s Peak, Idaho, and within a family that held many unconventional beliefs. In Educated Westover writes of how she left the religion, gained an education, earned her PhD, and was cut off from her family. In the critical essay, I discuss how in Educated, Westover found ways to question her family’s belief system within Mormon fundamentalism without becoming a ‘memory fundamentalist’ herself. By this I mean that she argues against the belief system she was brought up in, but does not insist upon her version of events being the only version – the only truth. A closing section at the end of the critical essay explores the questions raised in the discussion of Educated, contextualising how I have considered Westover’s stance against ‘memory fundamentalism’ in my own work, and how her work and thinking has informed my writing in Unbelief. The intention of this combined creative and critical thesis is to explore how writers of creative nonfiction might approach memoir that argues against a belief system while maintaining an editorial flexibility that is reflective of the sort of free thinking that is required to question a belief system in the first place.
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Embargoed until 21 November 2025.