'Fact' is one of the most crucial inventions of modern times. Susanne Knaller discusses the functions of this powerful notion in the arts and the sciences, its impact on aesthetic models and systems of knowledge. The practice of writing provides an effective procedure to realize and to understand facts. This concerns preparatory procedures, formal choices, models of argumentation, and narrative patterns. By considering 'writing facts' and 'writing facts', the volume shows why and how 'facts' are a result of knowledge, rules, and norms as well as of description, argumentation, and narration. This approach allows new perspectives on 'fact' and its impact on modernity.

Susanne Knaller (Prof. Dr.) teaches cultural studies and general and comparative literature at the Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz. In 2002, she received her habilitation at Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main. In 2009, she founded the research department General and Comparative Literature (AVL) in Graz. Since 2013, she has been the director of the Centre for Cultural Studies. Her research focuses on aesthetic theories 18th to 21st century, theory of authenticity, concepts of reality in modernity, emotion theories, writing as practice.