Thinking with Kafka

There is hardly a more intense and inspiring way to think about modernity than reading Kafka. In this course consisting of close readings and discussions of short texts by and about Kafka we will address a series of questions: What is Kafka’s vision of modernity and how does it relate to the medium of his art? What, in his writing, has inspired the most diverse – aesthetic, theological, psychological, political – readings? Why has he become the central reference for so many 20th and 21st century thinkers and philosophers, from Benjamin, Arendt, Derrida, Deleuze to Agamben? And what does it mean to read his texts today? 

The course will consist of an introductory part reflecting about Kafka, Modernity and Modernism, followed by group discussions. Alongside these readings of texts by Kafka, we will analyze selected passages from theoretical texts about Kafka by major philosophers.