Abstract (eng)
The thesis at hand deals with texts of the Austrian ‚Kabarett‘-tradition, a term referencing one-person-shows comparable to the English-language tradition of ‚stand-up comedy‘.
It is the first comprehensive analysis of the ‚Solokabarettprogramme‘ (solo one-person- shows/stand-up specials) of renowned Austrian ‚Kabarettist‘ Josef Hader. The thesis defines the term ‚Kabarett‘ anew as autofictional performance, performative autofiction, proposing for the first time a narratological view on the genre. The thesis’ theoretical background is constituted by Genette’s, Fludernik’s and Waugh’s theories on metalepsis, narrativity and metafiction, Werner Wolf’s definitions of metaization and aesthetic illusion, as well as Bachtin’s dialogism and Goffman’s thoughts on the presentation of the self in everyday life. Thus the term ‚Kabarett‘ and its entire tradition is reframed: ‚Kabarett‘ is understood as a multi-layered, metaleptic performative palimpsest – concerning individual performances, entire ‚Kabarettprogramme‘ (one-person-shows/specials), or a whole body of work: Hader rewrites Hader with every performance, creating new (meta-)Haders, the sole witness of all varieties being Hader himself. Foucault’s ego-plurality of the author function is exponentially multiplied through performance. ‚Kabarett‘ thus encompasses the core paradox of autofiction as well as Barthes’ ‚death of the author‘ in a nutshell: The ‚Kabarettist_in‘ is her-/himself and she/he is not.
Haders ‚Kabarettprogramme‘ create a dialogism of polyphonic, ‚ironic‘ Haders, who question referentiality and identity as such. The thesis “Keins eurer Bilder bin ich gewesen” (“I have been none of your conceptions”) analyzes the deconstructive force of performative autofiction and asks: What is ‚Kabarett‘, what is ‚Hader‘?