Celebration and Governing: The Production of the Author as Ascetic Practice

Abstract

Lately one seems to encounter a number of authors about whom much is said without ever encountering what has been said by the authors themselves. It is not the significance of the author but the significance of the author’s work that has been “thoroughly consigned to oblivion” as declarations of an author’s productivity, popularity, and visibility increasingly crowd out the author’s declarations. It is not uncommon to learn an author’s name, rank, and awards before one learns what it is that they are writing for. One can quickly discover the “400 most-cited political scientists”³ or the “102 most-cited works in sociology.”⁴ Publishers rank their most-viewed and most-cited authors on a monthly basis⁵ and the most-productive authors are celebrated in “Super Author” campaigns.⁶

We can read much by Robert Walser, but nothing about him.

Walter Benjamin, 1929¹

What a nice writer I ran into not long ago. He’s long been dead, by the way, for he wrote and lived around the year 1860, and his name will add nothing to this discussion, nor detract from it either, as I am speaking of one of those understandably numerous authors who have been thoroughly consigned to oblivion.

Robert Walser, 1932²