Senior Seminar
Kafka’s Philosophical Fictions
This course will consider how Kafka’s writing opens up the question of how to know and follow the law, Our readings will consider the relation between law, justice, and redemption, engaging Walter Benjamin’s reading of Kafka’s work. We will focus on the short writings, including aphorisms, fragments, parables and short stories. How are philosophical and religious questions posed in and through the form of a literary work,? And what difference does that make? Conversely, what does Kafka’s writing imply about the importance of fiction to philosophical inquiry? At the same time that we will engage close readings of his texts we will consider some of the major commentaries on his work by Derrida, Blanchot, Benjamin, Arendt, Scholem, and Adorno. Reading ability in German recommended, but not required.
Books (#1 and #3 available at University Press Books on Bancroft, #2 available through Amazon)
1. Franz Kafka, The Complete Stories, Schocken Books ISBN 0-8052-1055-5
2. Franz Kafka, Parables and Paradoxes, Schocken Books ISBN 0-8052-0012-6
3. Franz Kafka, The Trial, Schocken ISBN: 0-8052-10407