A exumação do autor na era digital

Abstract

This PhD thesis presents and discusses the hypothesis of the exhumation of the author in the digital age, that is to say, the search and promotion of authors by readers and the cultural industry through electronic media. For this purpose, we will initially present the thoughts of Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida that corroborate the “death of the author”, as well as some interventions in these theories in opposition to the literary reception of works and authors in practice. Then, the new roles played by authors and readers will be presented and discussed as well as the new forms of literary reception in the digital age through intersemiotic translations, which ends up promoting authors in the media even more; if the materiality of the text represented the “death of the author” in the 20th century, the digital media represent the means by which their figure is exhumed today. After analyzing the new ways of producing and consuming the literary product in multimedia, and no longer just the text, we will discuss the influences of pop culture and globalization on the circulation of literary works, authors and political places of speech in different sociocultural contexts and, eventually, the search and promotion of authors in this multicultural scenario. Finally, the exhumation of the author on the Internet by readers, literary critics, fan communities and the cultural industry, as well as how this search for the figure of the author and their production context affects the literary polysystem and the reception of authors and literary works in the digital age, will be presented and discussed.