Deaths of the Author

For thirty years the "death of the author" has been a familiar poststructuralist slogan in literary theory, widely understood and much debated as a dismissal of the author, a declaration of the writer's irrelevance to the readers experience. In this concise book, Jane Gallop revitalizes this hackneyed concept by considering not only the abstract theoretical death of the author but also the writer's literal death, as well as other authorial "deaths" such as obsolescence. Through bravura close readings of the influential literary theorists Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, she shows that the death of the author is best understood as a relation to temporality, not only for the reader but especially for the writer. Gallop does not just approach the death of the author from the reader's perspective; she also reflects at length on how impending death haunts the writer. By connecting an author's theoretical, literal, and metaphoric deaths, she enables us to take a fuller measure of the moving and unsettling effects of the deaths of the author on readers and writers, and on reading and writing.

“. . . Gallop has provided us with a profound look at what it means to read and write in the face of human mortality. Highly recommended for students of literature and literary theory.” - Emily Manuel, Global Comment, “Jane Gallop is no doubt one of the best readers of her generation, but with The Deaths of the Author she proves that her writing is unprecedented: sharp, brisk, with a great sense of rhythm, utterly sophisticated and yet perfectly clear, from the very first till the very last sentence.” - Jan Baeten, Leonardo, “Jane Gallop revitalises debates on the ‘death of the author’ theory by examining the effect the theory has on the author of a landmark work. She uses readings of influential literary theorists Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak to connect an author’s theoretical, literal and metaphoric deaths to discuss the idea.” - Times Higher Education, “Gallop meticulously yet gracefully analyzes the complicated relationship between a devoted reader and the author that inspires them. . . . Gallop’s impressive close reading breathes new life into these dead authors and fittingly pays tribute to the man who killed the author and liberated the reader by practicing what he preached at a level of insight and clarity on par with Barthes himself.” - Chase Dimock, Lambda Literary Review, “Gallop’s close readings in and around queer lives, the “fragments” that the “dead-but-still-going” author leaves behind, elegantly invite us into the traces, ghostings and shadows that viscerally render the imbrication between the theoretical and the personal — a dynamic often disregarded in many academic circles. By writing Barthes (then Derrida, then Sedgwick, then Owens, then Lynch, and then Spivak), [she] breathes life into the future-perfect corpses that are never really dead as such in the first place.The Deaths of the Author conjures a corps de ballet in which Gallop cinematically choreographs shadows and bodies so that in their performance they commingle. I am thankful for the invitation to dance.” - David A. Gerstner, Reviews in Cultural Theory

Jane Gallop is Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. She is the author of several books, including Living with His Camera, Anecdotal Theory, and Feminist Accused of Sexual Harassment, all also published by Duke University Press.