Friday, 22 November 2019, 7.30 pm, diffrakt | centre for theoretical periphery
Conversation with
Sarah Hechler | Dennis Schep
How does one write the self after the death of the author? Since the advent of post-structuralism, various authors have problematised the modern conception of autobiography by questioning the status of authorship and interrogating the relation between language and reality. Yet even after making autobiography into a theoretical problem, many of these authors ended up writing about themselves. This paradox stands at the center of The Autobiography Effect. Starting from a conversation around these effects, the discussion will also venture toward a brief outlook on recent autobiographical forms after the question of post-structuralist autobiography. Has the questioning of authorship and language been replaced by an interrogation of the social construction of the self, such as in the autobiographical writings of Didier Eribon and Annie Ernaux?