GERM 330 - Kafka

Kafka may be the most dizzyingly overdetermined proper name in world literature. Not only does it stand for the author, it has come to signify a host of political, institutional, existential, and aesthetic conditions. One refers to “Kafkaesque” experiences, sensibilities, or bureaucracies; situations, movies, the 20th century, and modern life are all regularly dubbed “Kafkan” or “Kafkaish.” The name seems to have a life of its own; but to understand what it means, students must animate Kafka by reading him. Students read, discuss, and think about a range of Kafka’s writing, from novels and short stories to diary entries and legal brief, paying close attention not only to the texts and their various obsessions, but to their emergence in his creative process and their afterlives in translation and the works of other artists. Students explore the multicultural Central European milieu that Kafka inhabited and examine the global transmission and remediation of his work in its critical reception, multiple translations, and adaptations; its transmutation into a style; and its metastasis in popular culture. Taught in English. Participation in the accompanying FLAC section is mandatory for students wishing to earn GERM major/minor credit for this course.

Credits: 1.00
Corequisite: None
Prerequisites: None
Major/Minor Restrictions: None
Class Restriction: None
Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
Liberal Arts CORE: Global Engagements

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