Projects / Programmes
Evolution of Authorial Roles: Slovene Literary Author in Comparative European Context
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 6.07.00 |
Humanities |
Literary sciences |
|
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| H390 |
Humanities |
General and comparative literature, literary criticism, literary theory |
author, authorship theory, history of the author, literary producer, author-function, copyright, literature, history of the arts, sociology of literature, sociology of the arts, social systems, arts systems, media system
Researchers (1)
| no. |
Code |
Name and surname |
Research area |
Role |
Period |
No. of publicationsNo. of publications |
| 1. |
21450 |
PhD Marijan Dović |
Literary sciences |
Head |
2007 - 2008 |
602 |
Organisations (1)
Abstract
The research starts off by analyzing the paradox situation, which the concept of the author meets at the beginning of the 21st century, and focuses on the historical changes of authorial roles and functions, connected to the evolution of contemporary technologies, media, institutions and legislation. It tries to emphasize the correlations between the authorial roles, media and technologies, to show the changes and evolution of an authorial role in Slovene literature and culture until today (in comparison to other European literatures) and also to set some hypotheses on the future of what will be going on with an author. Special focus is placed on the author of Slovene literature from its beginnings in 18th century until modern times. Crucial periods in this development were the period when literature was adopting the role of national emancipation, the period when the model of a writer-artist was being finally established (which coincided to the professionalization of literary producer and establishment of an autonomous literary system), and the critical point in the last decades of the 20th century, when the characteristic model of a writer-dissenter slowly started to lose its significance. This evolution is always viewed in the context of similar processes elsewhere in Europe – in “great” literatures (e.g. German) as well as in smaller and more similar (e.g. Czech or Croatian).
Significance for science
Contemporary concepts of autorship are being integrated into Slovenian humanities relatively slowly. Regarding this fact, one of the first aims of the research project "Evolution of Authorial Roles: Slovene Literary Author in Comparative European Context" was to provide a synthetic overview of the new achievements in the area of authorship studies in literature and other discourses. These achievements – which were also the topic of the international comparative literature colloquium "The Author: Who or What is Writing Literature?" (Lipica 2008) – represent the basic frame of the discussion in the monograph "Slovenski pisatelj: razvoj vloge literarnega proizvajalca v slovenskem literarnem sistemu" (Ljubljana 2007), which is undoubtedly the most visible and durable result of the research project. The second paradigm that strongly influenced the discussion in this innovative historical investigation of the Slovenian literary system and authorial roles is contemporary empirical and systemic approaches to literature. The research starts off by analyzing the paradox situation, which the concept of the author meets at the beginning of the 21st century, and focuses on the historical changes of authorial roles and functions, connected to the evolution of contemporary technologies, media, institutions and legislation. It tries to emphasize the correlations between the authorial roles, media and technologies, to show the changes and evolution of an authorial role in Slovene literature and culture until today (in comparison to other European literatures) and also to set some hypotheses on the future of what will be going on with an author. Special focus is placed on the author of Slovene literature from its beginnings in 18th century until modern times. Crucial periods in this development were the period when literature was adopting the role of national emancipation, the period when the model of a writer-artist was being finally established (which coincided to the professionalization of literary producer and establishment of an autonomous literary system), and the critical point in the last decades of the 20th century, when the characteristic model of a writer-dissenter slowly started to lose its significance. This evolution is always viewed in the context of similar processes elsewhere in Europe – in “great” literatures (e.g. German) as well as in smaller and more similar (e.g. Czech or Croatian).
The project "Evolution of Authorial Roles: Slovene Literary Author in Comparative European Context" as a whole attempts to surpass the level of “anthologic” synthesys: abstract theoretical concepts are being confronted with concrete materials and problems from the Slovenian literary history, and therefore its synthetic and applicative aspects are combined in a creative manner. By interventions to relevant social areas, such as the problem of literary censorship (international colloquium with prominent lecturers and the bilingual thematic issue of Primerjalna književnost "Literature and Censorship: Who is Afraid of the Truth of Literature?", Ljubljana 2008) and contemporary models of literary writers, the project and its outcomes have also proved to be useful in other contexts, such as regulation of copyright or subsidy politics.
Significance for the country
The problems of authorship and creativity are involved profoundly when we are trying to re-think the questions connected to the Slovene (and European) cultural heritage in general. From this point, these problems are of course a subject of basic/fundamental research. But some of the results of the project "Evolution of Authorial Roles: Slovene Literary Author in Comparative European Context" are also practically oriented (especially when analyzing the contemporary situation in Slovene literary system), and could be used outside the field. Possibilities for such use are at least two: the first is the area of the regulation of copyright laws, definig the author’s work, delimiting fiction from non-fiction, and the problem of censorship; all of which already are relevant contemporary topics. (It is important to present a strong set of arguments from the area of literary studies in this discussion, and not only the law.) From this field, the most important achievements are the monograph "Slovenski pisatelj: razvoj vloge literarnega proizvajalca v slovenskem literarnem sistemu" (Ljubljana 2007), which puts the questions of authorship and copyright into the appropriate historical and comparative context, and two succesful international colloquiums "The Author: Who or What is writing Literature?" (Lipica 2008) and "Literature and Censorship: Who is Afraid of the Truth of Literature?" (Lipica 2007). Especially censorship proved to be an important topic in the discussion on post-totalitarian plural and democratic society in Slovenia. The second meaningful possibility of using the results is connected to changing the policy of state funding of culture and arts in Slovenia which at the moment seems to be relatively conservative; some new arguments and suggestions for renewing the subsidiy politics (regarding the “book chain” as a whole) are presented especially in the monograph "Slovenski pisatelj" and articles on the models of Slovenian literary writers.
Most important scientific results
Final report,
complete report on dLib.si
Most important socioeconomically and culturally relevant results
Final report,
complete report on dLib.si
