Sofie Behluli

Sofie Behluli

Sofie Behluli is an assistant to the Chair of Literatures in English / North American Literature and Culture at the University of Bern. She has recently started working on her PhD project with the preliminary title “Visuality and Materiality in the Contemporary North American Novel” while pursuing her training as a grammar school teacher at the College of Education. Her research interests focus on intermediality, visuality and materiality in the contemporary North American novel. Postmodernism, its consequences for today’s culture, and the question of what comes after it serve as an important driving force for her research in general. Sofie Behluli’s preoccupation with these interdisciplinary theoretical approaches and historical backdrops can be seen in her MA thesis, in which she develops a new, aura-enhancing function of ekphrasis in her reading of Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch (2013). Indeed, adapting Walter Benjamin’s concept of ‘aura’ to literary studies and the age of digital reproduction is a long-term goal of hers.

Title of PhD Project

Visuality and Materiality in the Contemporary North American Novel

Research Foci

North American Literature (20th – 21st century) | Postmodernism and Post-Postmodernism | Intermediality | Ekphrasis | Paragone (Literature vs. Painting) | Visuality | Materiality & New Materialism