Lorek-Jezińska, E., Strehlau, N., Więckowska, K.
Altering Authorships: Absences and Presences of Authors in Contemporary Culture
(2021) Avant, 12 (3)
DOI: 10.26913/avant.2021.03.07
Abstract
This article serves as an introduction to the anthology devoted to the study of altering author-ships in contemporary literature and culture. Drawing attention to the influence of Roland Barthes’s and Michel Foucault’s works on the author and authorship, the essay emphasises the importance of the context of both production and reception in determining the authority over and responsibility for the literary/cultural text. By altering authorships we mean various pro-cesses of diffusing authorial authority, on the one hand, and reassessing authorship for alter-native authors, on the other. Conceptualised as authorial absences and authorial presences, the acts of questioning and transforming the practices of authorship and the process of (re)intro-ducing alternative or marginalised authors discussed in the article testify to the continuing significance of the authorship debate. In this context, authorship can be approached as “a living absence” (Berensmeyer et al.), opening space for disruptions, dispersals, redefinitions, nego-tiations and reconciliations of authorial presences. © 2021, Avant. All rights reserved.
Author Keywords
Authorial practices; Authors; Authorship; Gender studies; Per-formativity; Transhumanism
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