Programme
Welcome
Karin Lach | Vienna University Library, English and American Studies Library
Presentation
Caitríona Ní Dhúill | University of Salzburg
Julia Novak | Department of English and American Studies, University of Vienna
Discussion
Followed by light refreshments
About the publication
Julia Novak – C. Ní Dhúill (eds.), Imagining Gender in Biographical Fiction (Springer International, Cham, 2022)
Imagining Gender in Biographical Fiction addresses the current boom in biographical fictions across the globe, examining the ways in which gendered lives of the past become re-imagined as gendered narratives in fiction.
In twelve chapters and an author interview, the volume ranges in focus from narratives of female scientists, early modern artists and women of letters to debates over non-conforming gender identities in neo-Victorian and postmodernist biographical fiction.
Imagining Gender in Biographical Fiction showcases culturally and historically diverse approaches to the fictional reworking of biographical 'raw material'. Drawing on theories of biofiction and historical fiction, life-writing studies, feminist criticism, queer feminist readings, postcolonial studies, feminist art history, and trans studies, the volume assesses the critical and deconstructive potential of biographical fictions while revealing the effects of cliché, gender norms and established narratives in this increasingly popular and productive genre.
- Link to the print edition at the Vienna University Library
- Link to the online edition via the Vienna University Library
The introduction of this book is available open access at link.springer.com
About the editors
Caitríona Ní Dhúill is Professor in German at the University of Salzburg. She is the author of Metabiography: Reflecting on Biography (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) and Sex in Imagined Spaces: Gender and Utopia from More to Bloch (2010). She is co-editor of the Journal Austrian Studies, and guest co-editor of a double special issue of Poetics Today (2016) on negative futures. She has published numerous articles and book chapters on gender theory, utopian theory, modernist literature and life writing.
Julia Novak is a tenure-track Professor for English Literature and Mediality at the Department of English and American Studies, University of Vienna, and an editor of the European Journal of Life Writing. She has published two monographs: a book on reading groups, Gemeinsam Lesen (2007) and another titled Live Poetry: An Integrated Approach to Poetry in Performance (2011). She also co-edited the volume Experiments in Life Writing: Intersections of Auto/Biography and Fiction (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).
