Encounters with Kafka

To encounter Kafka means not only to understand the extensive criticism of modernity Kafka has offered, but also to be able to recognize the impact of his writings, style and thought on contemporary writers, artists, thinkers: Chaplin Camus, Sartre, Arendt, Benjamin, Kundura, Nabakov, Becket, Calvino, Highsmith, Grass, Lynch, Ginsberg, Celan, Oates, Davis, Derrida, Deleuze, Kofman… to name a few. Kafka’s appeal is the focus of this course. We shall read a few Kafka’s short stories along with the literature, the art works and films his stories have inspired. We will examine the impact the encounter with Kafka has occasioned.