COML 4165

In the Vein of Kafka

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2014-2015.

The course begins with the banal observation of Franz Kafka's pervasive influence on many, many later writers. The more important beginning, though, is the understanding that we will be done with Kafka when we are done with bureaucracy, anxiety, exhaustion, family tragicomedy, interpretation, bad air, ambiguous sexuality, religious befuddlement, written and unwritten law, and dreams. Visiting Prague, the Chinese poet Bei Dao relates that his host "took us to Kafka's home beside the square of the Old Town, and pointed out that beneath our feet flowed a huge vein of ore." Reading Kafka and others–Robert Walser, Roberto Arlt, Bruno Schulz, W. G. Sebald, James Kelman, Can Xue, Yoko Tawada–we will mine that ore.

When Offered Fall.

Permission Note Enrollment limited to: 15 students.

Distribution Category (LA-AS)

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