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.” Since 2018, I have been a visiting research fellow at the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing, University of Oxford, and at the Centre for Life-Writing Research, King’s College London.

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.

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)

Articles and Book Chapters:

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

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

"Fictionalisation of Testimony." Culture and Its Uses As Testimony (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)

“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