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Authors not only create artworks. In the process of creating, they simultaneously bring to life their author personae. Approaching this phenomenon from an interdisciplinary point of view, Sonja Longolius develops a concept of "performative authorship" by examining different strategies of becoming an author. In regard to the notion of her concept, this work offers a critical and comparative analysis of the works of Paul Auster, Candice Breitz, Sophie Calle, and Jonathan Safran Foer. Specifically, Auster/Calle and Breitz/Foer form a generational pair of opposites, enabling a discussion of postmodern and post-postmodern artistic strategies of "performative authorship".

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"Longolius [hat] einen Grundstein gelegt, dem eine weitere Auseinandersetzung mit den Beispielen in historischer Hinsicht folgen sollte." Janneke Schoene, www.arthist.net, 22.11.2016

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Sonja Longolius is a literary scholar, art historian, and curator based in Berlin. Her interests include, among others, art and literary theory and contemporary art and literature: http://sonja.longolius.com.

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