Christian Dinger

born in 1988 in Itzehoe. 2008-2014: study of German Philology and Philosophy at University of Göttingen and University of Vienna. Tutor at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Göttingen as well as the Institute for Philosophy and the Institute for German Studies at the University of Vienna. 2010-2011: traineeship in literary management at the Centre for Literature, Göttingen. 2013-2014 editorial assistant with Litlog - an e-zine for literature, culture, and science based in Göttingen. 2013-2014: research student and from October 2014 graduate student at the Research Training Group GRK 1787.



Doctoral project: Autofiction - Textual and paratextual practices of self-fashioning in the field of contemporary German literature
In recent years numerous titles have emerged on the German book market which are notable because one of the characters carries the name of the author. Through this practice of fictionalizing authorship which is examined in the most recent literary studies research under the title of autofiction, the border between fictionality and factuality is playfully blurred and the question as to the role of the empirical author is posed afresh.
In the context of my dissertation project, the particularities of autofictional texts, their inherent fictionality concept and their positioning and production within the field of German contemporary literature shall be examined. The text-analytical examination of individual autofictional text examples equally plays a role as does the examination of the related paratexts and the observation of the sociology of literature dimension of autofictional writing. Through the particular consideration of the paratexts and the sociology of literature methodology in accordance with the field theory of Pierre Bourdieu the project also touches on questions of the self-fashioning of the author and of the economic context (of the publisher). A particular role, and one previously not researched, is played by digital paratexts and thus the renewal and expansion in the field of presentation, self-fashioning and marketing of literature. An examination on the basis of this extended perspective makes it possible to get a better understanding of the term of autofiction while gaining an insight into the interactions between publishing, book marketing, the self-fashioning of the author and their work and the function of paratexts controlled by reception.