Alexandra Effe

Academic interests

Narratology; Poetics; Cognitive Literary Studies; Autobiography and Life-Writing Studies; Postcolonial Literature and Theory

Background

I studied English and Psychology at the University of Freiburg in Germany and then went to Queen Mary University of London for doctoral studies, which culminated in my first monograph on J. M. Coetzee and the Ethics of Narrative Transgression: A Reconsideration of Metalepsis (Palgrave, 2017). Subsequently, I took up a post as the scientific coordinator of a PhD Program in Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of Giessen and stayed on as a research fellow of the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture, where I was active in research groups on “Cultural Narratology,” “Identity,” and on the “Interface between Literature and Life Sciences.” From 2018 to 2020, I was a visiting research fellow at the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing, University of Oxford, where I currently co-run a project on "Autofiction in Global Perspective." In 2019, I took up my current position at the University of Oslo, where I teach in the department of Literature, Area Studies and European Languages and conduct research on the intersection of fictional and autobiographical writing.

Ongoing research

Autofictional Cognitive Poetics: Hybrid Writing, Texts, and Reading from the Eighteenth Century to the Twenty-First

In my current research, I investigate the intersection of fictional and autobiographical writing from the eighteenth century to the present day by drawing on rhetorical narrative theory, cognitive poetics, and cognitive psychology and neuroscience.

I talk about the project with Mari Lilleslåtten from the Humanities Faculty. The interview is available here.

Projects

I’m a participant of the research and education initiative, Literature, Cognition and Emotions (LCE), which is one of the Faculty of Humanities five promoted initiatives. LCE is an interdisciplinary hub that brings together literary studies, linguistics, psychology and neurosciences in a new conversation about literature.

Courses taught at UiO

LIT2340  Sjangerstudium: The Novel: Origins and Development of an Experimental Genre in the Long 18^th Century and Beyond

LIT4310A/LIT4310B Litteraturteoretisk studium I: Cognitive Literary Studies

LIT4380A/LIT4380B Verdenslitteratur / World Literature

Publications

Monograph:

J. M. Coetzee and the Ethics of Narrative Transgression: A Reconsideration of Metalepsis. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. (https://www.palgrave.com/de/book/9783319601007)

Edited books

Ed. with Hannie Lawlor. The Autofictional: Approaches, Affordances, Forms. Edited together with Hannie Lawlor. Cham: Palgrave, 2021

Articles and Book Chapters:

“Autobiographies/Autrebiographies/Biographies.” Bloomsbury Companion to J. M. Coetzee. Ed. Andrew van der Vlies and Lucy Graham (forthcoming)

With Carmen-Francesca Banciu and Melissa Schuh. "Fictionalisation of Testimony." Culture and Its Uses As Testimony (forthcoming)

"Ben Lerner’s 10:04 and the “utopian glimmer of [auto]fiction.” Modern Fiction Studies 67.4 (2021) (forthcoming) 

"Autofiction in the Anthropocene: Everyday Fictionality As a Response to 21st-Century Concerns in Ben Lerner's 10:04." Literature and Literary Studies in the 21st Century: Cultural Concerns--Concepts--Case Studies. Trier: WVT (forthcoming)

With Alison Gibbons. “A Cognitive Perspective on Autofictional Writing, Texts, and Reading.” The Autofictional: Approaches, Affordances, Forms. Ed. Alexandra Effe and Hannie Lawlor. Cham: Palgrave, 2021. 

“Forms at Work in Testimony: A Cognitive New Formalist Approach.” Forms at Work: New Formalist Approaches in the Study of Literature, Culture and Media. Ed. Elizabeth Kovach, Imke Polland, and Ansgar Nünning. Trier: WVT, 2021. 185-201.

"Postcolonial Criticism and Cognitive Literary Studies: A New Formalist Approach to Antjie Krog's Country of My Skull. Journal of Postcolonial Writing 56.1 (2020): 97-109 (open access)

"Coetzee's Summertime As a Metaleptic Conversation." JNT: Journal for Narrative Theory 47.2 (2017): 252-275

"Fighting Real Fires with Fictional Flames: J. M. Coetzee's Literary Response to Political and Discursive Crises." Literature and Crises: Conceptual Explorations and Literary Negotiations. Ed. Elizabeth Kovach, Ansgar Nünning, and Imke Polland. Trier: WVT, 2017. 131-142