Topics in 20th -Century Literature: Kafka’s Labyrinths

Franz Kafka was once called an expert on questions of power. That peculiarity is the focus of this seminar. Guided by exemplary topics - the architecture of labyrinths and text-labyrinths, the machine and the apparatus, guilt and the law, animal figures, family dramas, the worlds of objects - we will primarily discuss Kafka’s stories and novels as attempts at a literary analysis of power. At issue, therefore, is the relationship between narrative strategies and the political dimension of this literature. At the same time, the seminar will offer a discussion of modern narrative theories and the ethics of literature.