Of the dissolution of the person: The strange problem of personal identity in recent German-language autopathographies Cover Image

Von der Auflösung der Person: Das seltsame Problem der personalen Identität in neueren deutschsprachigen Autopathographien
Of the dissolution of the person: The strange problem of personal identity in recent German-language autopathographies

Author(s): Roman Mikuláš, Andrea Mikulášová
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, German Literature
Published by: Ústav svetovej literatúry, Slovenská akadémia vied
Keywords: Interdiscursivity; Personal identity; Autopathography; Autobiography; Cerebral aneurysm; Organ transplantation; Sobo Swobodnik; Susanne Krahe;

Summary/Abstract: Texts from the field of autopathography are close to the professional discourse of the medicalsciences and offer alternative ways of conceptualizing and thinking about illness. The recentautopathographic works that are analyzed in this article describe illnesses that are no longer evaluated as consequences of social developments, as was usually the case in the “new interiority”; rather, pathologies are interpreted as part of an individual life. Since the associated experiences and the consequences of the disease are serious for the individual life,the question of personal identity is often raised. The question of self is always relevant whenpeople who express this question do not know or no longer know who they are (or have become), or when they no longer have a sense of unity. This concerns not only external orders(i.e. uprooting of any kind), but also internal disruption. These insecurities are thus the trigger for questions about identity that are posed in the analyzed texts.

  • Issue Year: 15/2023
  • Issue No: 4
  • Page Range: 33-49
  • Page Count: 17
  • Language: German