GERST 3350 - Kafka in Context: Trials of Modernity

(LA-AS) Satisfies Option 1.

Spring. 4 credits. Student option grading.

Prerequisite: one course on the GERST 3000-3209 level or placement by examination. Readings and discussion in German.

A. Schwarz.

Focus on Kafka’s literary, theatrical, political, historical, religious, personal and intellectual environment and its impact on his literary productions. Topics of discussion include: the individual versus hierarchical systems (state, law, bureaucracy); the individual and the arts (music, theater, literature); writing between life and death; finding a home in language; the animal in the human; the body between pain and pleasure; writing between wars. Seminar will also explore Kafka’s enormous impact on modern film, drama and literature. Readings include his short stories and one novel.