This dissertation theorizes the ramifications of new media forms of narrative on subjectivization by tracing the evolution of the observer through its permutations as second-order observer, witness, director, and narrative agent and demonstrating the various interacting processes involved in the recursive feedback loops between and among, self, world, and story. In this project, I ex-plore novels by contemporary U.S. authors John Barth, Richard Powers, Don DeLillo, and David Foster Wallace, as well as two televisual texts, Battlestar Galactica and Dollhouse. Drawing from several seemingly disparate theories, I situate my argument in the interstices of systems theory (Luhmann, Clarke), psychoanalysis (Lacan, Butler), media theory (Ellis, Fiske, Buonanno), and posthuman theory (Hayles, Badmington), putting forth a theoretical lens I call posthuman narrative onto-epistemology. The study thus fits into overlapping critical conversations. The extended treatment of five contemporary American novels situates Storied Subjects in conversations surrounding postmodernism and posthumanism as well as conversations surrounding these particular authors. For example, in the first chapter, I argue that the John Barth’s Giles Goat-Boy and Richard Powers’s Galatea 2.2 incorporate the observer from systems theory into the narrative frame, catalyzing an ontological and epistemological shift. In the second chapter, I show the ways in which Don DeLillo’s novels White Noise and Underworld demonstrate what John Ellis calls the “witness” ontology as well as the evolution of that ontology into what I call the “direc-tor” in David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. In addition, the chapter devoted to televisual texts intervenes in an important, though often marginalized, conversation surrounding the importance of situating televisual narratives in dialogue with print fiction, arguing that we must attend to TV texts if we are to understand the texture of contemporary print fiction, which is saturated with the language of TV. In the final chapter, I explore the development of the “narrative agent” ontology, examining both form and content of the televisual texts Battlestar Galactica and Dollhouse in order to argue that, once second-order observation reaches a prolonged critical awareness, the observer’s observation runs alongside her or his ability to intervene in the narrative, which allows for changing the story itself.

[pt] A tese Ego-histórias: repertórios teóricos alternativos, dedicada à investigação de novos discursos autobiográficos situados nos limiares entre historiografia, biografia e ficção, tem por objetivo a construção de ferramentas teóricas a partir da análise crítica de quadros conceituais vigentes. Na ótica de novas questões, são tematizadas e reavaliadas, de um lado, posições tradicionais ancoradas na unidade do sujeito, na autenticidade de sua fala e na ilusão referencial, legitimadas pela oposição dicotômica de pares conceituais, como real/ficcional, autenticidade/encenação, sujeito/objeto. Por outro lado, são oferecidos modelos analíticos e estratégias descritivas que permitem entender a escrita autobiográfica atual como gênero híbrido, de configuração plural, que desafia pactos autobiográficos fundados sobre a identidade entre as instâncias autoral, narrativa e ficcional. Os próprios processos autorreflexivos subjacentes à escrita de si são problematizados à luz de novas convicções epistemológicas construtivistas (S. SCHMIDT; H. MATURANA) e de molduras sistêmicas entendidas como catalisadores de complexidade. No horizonte dessas concepções, são discutidas, entre outras, formas de autoanálise (P. BOURDIEU) e projetos autobiográficos (E. SAID) convergindo ambos na produção de ego-histórias responsáveis pela transformação de teorias em narrativa e permitindo aos teóricos a fusão entre observador e objeto observado, baseada no conceito de observação de segunda ordem. Desse modo, são ensaiados novos vínculos entre suas ideias particulares e a inserção delas no contexto contemporâneo que escapam a relações tradicionais de causalidade e acentuam a responsabilidade dos próprios produtores. Em perspectiva paralela, é analisada a relação entre corpo e escrita e entre emoção e experiência, vigorosamente presentes e ressonantes como propostas conceituais que não perdem sua força interpelativa pela transformação em meras abstrações filosóficas, mas exibem seu poder pela opção construtora de uma vida no mundo. Em seu conjunto, a tese representa uma contribuição inovadora para a construção de repertórios teóricos alternativos que permitem elaborar um saber adequado às novas configurações de escritos autobiográficos. / [en] The thesis Ego-histories: theoretical alternatives repertoires, dedicated to research into new autobiographical discourses situated in the thresholds between historiography, biography and fiction, aims to build theoretical tools from the review of existing conceptual frameworks. In the analysis of new issues, are highlighted and reevaluated, on the one hand, traditional positions anchored in the unity of the subject, the authenticity of its discourse and referential illusion, legitimized by the dichotomous opposition of conceptual pairs such as real/fictional, authenticity/staging, subject/object. On the other hand, are offered analytical models and descriptive strategies that allow to understand the current autobiographical writing as a hybrid genre, with plural configurations that challenge the autobiographical pact based on the identity between instances of authorship, narrative and the fictional. The very processes underlying the self-reflexive writing itself, are analyzed in the light of new constructivist epistemological convictions (S. SCHMIDT; H. MATURANA) and systemic frames understood as a catalyst of complexity. In the perspective of these concepts are discussed, among others, forms of self-analysis (P. BOURDIEU) and autobiographical projects (E. SAID) converging both in the production of ego-histories responsible for transforming theories in narratives and thus allowing the theoretical melting between observer and observed object, based on the concept of second-order observation. Thus, are tested new links between their particular ideas and insertion them in the contemporary context that escape of traditional relations of causality and emphasize the responsibility of their producers. In a parallel perspective, is analyzed the relation between body and writing and between emotion and experience, vigorously present and resonant as conceptual proposals that do not lose its strength of interpellation by transforming them into mere philosophical abstractions, but they exhibit their power by the option of building a life in the world. Overall, the thesis represents an innovative contribution to the construction of alternative theoretical repertoires that allow to draw up a knowledge appropriate to produce a new settings of autobiographical writings.