Sofie Behluli is a research assistant to the Chair of Literatures in English / North American Literature and Culture at the University of Bern. She is currently preparing a PhD project proposal for SNF funding while pursuing her training as a grammar school teacher at the College of Education. Having worked as a tutor for Literary Theory and as a substitute teacher on and off, she enjoys teaching and considers it to be a crucial aspect of academic life. Her research interests focus on intermediality, visuality and materiality in the contemporary 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 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, reviving and adapting Walter Benjamin’s concept of ‘aura’ to the age of digital reproduction is a long-term goal of hers. Currently she is turning this MA thesis into an article and co-writing another on “Digital Ekphrasis” with Prof. Dr. Gabriele Rippl, her PhD supervisor in Bern. Website