Matthias Schaffrick, M. A.

Institute for German Philology

curriculum vitae:

Ph.D. project:

In the author’s company. Religious and political representations of authorship in systems theoretical comparison

Authors have always worked with religious patterns of staging, at the same time claiming political functions and political authority. The topos of the “death of the author” (Roland Barthes) bundles up this discourse with its both religious and political implications. However, only very few of the ensuing literary critical resuscitation attempts, from the “resurrection” of the author to his “returning”, take the religious patterns of interpretation or the political authority claimed by the dictum of the ‘dead author’ on his part into consideration.

Society deals with authors not only in literature. Literary authorship is merely an exception, not a singular phenomenon of authorship. Authors are present in all areas of society. The label “author” is the authorisation to be present in society.

The established religious and political semantics of authorship (‘creation’, ‘writing’, ‘authority’, ‘representation’) are used as an opportunity to focus on the constitution and the staging not only of literary, but also of non-literary authorship in contemporary society. The project pursues the question of “What is an author?” in science, religion and in the politics of society. Accordingly, the objects of the exemplary analyses are religious (Benedict XVI) and political (Helmut Schmidt) as well as literary (Martin Mosebach) and academic authors.

It is assumed that particularly religious and political media and forms of representation are drawn upon in order to successfully devise and legitimise authors’ stagings. Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory will be applied to trace the interconnections of perspectives of observation– the author is an observer who is constantly being observed – and to analyse them both interdisciplinarily and comparatively. As self-definitions, the functions that are ascribed to the authors also reveal something about the society in which this takes place. How do authors describe the society in which they write? And how does society describe itself through its authors?

The analysis of texts, paratexts, interviews, films and web presences brings forth a diagnosis of modern society which takes into account the historical developments and conditions under which the authors write. The project aims to reveal those dimensions of the religious and the political − e.g. in the secularisation narrative or the renaissance of religion − that otherwise remain mostly unobserved. 

reserach interests:

• History and theory of authorship
• Religion and literature
• Literary and culture theories
• Contemporary literature
• Systems theory
• Discourses of the national

Function within the cluster/Membership in projects and groups:

• Member of the study group Authorship
• Member of the study group Luhmann's Systems Theory

Current projects:

• Article „Autor/Prophet wider Willen. Uwe Johnsons Jona-Erzählung als Autorschaftsparabel“. In: Autorschaft und Prophetie. Charisma, Heilsversprechen und Gefährdung. Ed. by Christel Meier and Martina Wagner-Egelhaaf (to be published with Akademie-Verlag in 2012).
• Conference contribution (and article) on „Martin Mosebach. Liturgie, Souveränität und der Roman" in the framework of the conference series „Autorschaft im Spannungsfeld von Religion und Politik", Münster, 3 February, 2012
• together with Marcus Willand: edition of an anthology including contributions to the conference „Autorschaft zwischen Intention, Inszenierung und Gesellschaft"  (to be published with de Gruyter in 2012)
• Conference contribution (and article) on „Das Interview als Roman. Wolf Haas und Das Wetter vor 15 Jahren" in the framework of the conference „Literatur und Interview", Frankfurt a. M., 26-28 September 2012

Publications:

• Medialität und Intermedialität von Grabbes „Hermannsschlacht“. Eine systemtheoretische Analyse. In: Grabbe-Jahrbuch 25 (2006). p. 157-179.
• „Ah – der Hermann!“ Ein Bericht von den „Hermannsschlachten“. In: Grabbe-Jahrbuch 26/27 (2007/2008). p. 15-26.
• Kontroversen – Bündnisse – Imitationen: Geschichte und Typologie schriftstellerischer Inszenierungspraktiken (Tagung in Göttingen v. 25.–27.6.2009). In: Zeitschrift für Germanistik. Neue Folge, 20 (2010), H. 2. p. 431-433.
• [Article] Georg Martin Oswald. In: Killy Literaturlexikon. Autoren und Werke des deutschsprachigen Kulturraums. Ed. by Wilhelm Kühlmann. Second edition, completely revised, vol. 9. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter 2010. p. 24.
• [Article] Angelika Overath. In: Killy Literaturlexikon. Autoren und Werke des deutschsprachigen Kulturraums. Ed. by Wilhelm Kühlmann. Second edition, completely revised, vol. 9. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter 2010. p. 51f.
• Wolken.Heim. genießen. Elfriede Jelineks Nationaltheater. In: Das nationale Imaginäre. Ed. by Katharina Grabbe, Sigrid Köhler and Martina Wagner-Egelhaaf [to be published in 2011, 22 pages].
• Literarische Liturgie. Realpräsenz und Realismus in Martin Mosebachs Roman Eine lange Nacht. In: Literatur als Performance. Ed. by Ana R. Calero Valera and Brigitte Jirku [to be published in 2011/12 by Königshausen und Neumann, 18 pages].

Co-editor of the online journal Textpraxis. Digitales Journal für Philologie

Lecture:

• Kapitalismus und Moral. Zur literarischen Darstellung des „kapitalistischen Moralisten” [International symposium “Imaginationen des Kapitalismus” (Imaginations of Capitalism), Brecht-Haus Berlin, 18-20 November 2004]
• Crisis and Excess: Political Rhetoric in Elfriede Jelinek's Lastest Plays (German Studies Association, 33rd Annual Conference, Washington, D.C., 8-11 October 2009)
• Das Interview als Roman. „Das Wetter vor 15 Jahren“ von Wolf Haas (Northeast Modern Language Association, 41st Annual Convention, Montréal, 8-11 April 2010)
• „Luhmann / Alltagsplausibilität / Gesellschaft” (Rainald Goetz): Autoren der Gegenwart - systemtheoretisch betrachtet (Workshop "Doing Contemporary Literature". Praktiken, Wertungen und Automatismen in der Forschung zur Gegenwartsliteratur, Paderborn, 20-21 July 2010)
• Autorschaft als Liturgie. Zur Performance eines Rituals bei Martin Mosebach (VII. FAGE Kongress Performance / Performanz, Valencia, 16-18 September 2010)
• In der Gesellschaft des Autors. Vom Scheitern einer Autoritätskonstruktion unter postsäkularen Bedingungen (Doktorandenforum Kultur der Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes, Weimar, 28 April - 1 May 2011)

Conference Organisation and Seminars:

• Organisation of the Masterclass „Walter Benjamin" with Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Sigrid Weigel, Münster, 8 December 2011
• Together with Marcus Willand organisation of the conference „Autorschaft zwischen Intention, Inszenierung und Gesellschaft. Positionsbestimmungen nach der 'Rückkehr des Autors'" at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, March 31 until April 2, 2011, programme download [pdf], conference proceedings by Jan-Noël Thon and Christoph Pflaumbaum in: Zeitschrift für Germanistik. Neue Folge 21 (2011), vol. 3. pp. 620-622.
• Seminar WS 2010/11: Erzählte Autorschaft (Germanistisches Institut, Seminar im Aufbaumodul Literatur)
• Organisation of the Masterclass „Der Antichrist und der Gekreuzigte" with Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Heinrich Detering, Münster, 8 January 2010

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