Autotheory as Method

I will present my findings in the form of autotheoretical essays. By autotheory I mean a method and mode of presentation that combines philosophy and personal experience. Accordingly, I draw the philosophical problems I discuss from my experiences as a parent, friend, lover, partner, colleague, relative, comrade, or neighbour. To reflect on these problems, I consult psychological, philosophical and sociological literature on the one hand, and the empirical results of my archival research and interviews on the other. Following authors such as Paul Preciado and Maggie Nelson, I claim that the private is not only political but also philosophical. This is a critical intervention in the German academic landscape, which is still marked by the positivist idea of objective science.

Outside academic philosophy, however, autotheoretical texts have become very popular and marketable in recent years. I think this is because they deliberately blur the boundary between the narrative figure and the author. In this way, they are particularly well suited to selling the (supposed) fulfilment of the reader’s desire for “real contact” with the author. Autotheory is therefore in danger of losing its critical function. To counter this, I work with unreliable narrators who systematically frustrate the attempt to equate narrator and author.

Alongside the research-based material of my texts, it is this mode of presentation that distinguishes my approach from other autotheoretical methods.