Course Description
Summary
When he died at age 40 in a sanitarium outside Vienna, Franz Kafka left the bulk of his literary effort in a drawer in the desk of his parent’s home in Prague. What he wanted was for his friend Max Brod to burn everything. In this class, we will read what was not burned, including the two major novels—The Trial, and The Castle, as well as his shorter masterpieces, The Metamorphosis, A Hunger Artist, and Josephine the Mouse Singer. In class, we will also read portions of Kafka’s letters to his father, selections from his diary, as well as his collected Aphorisms, in order to begin to investigate what is true of Kafka, and what is myth, and how his singular vision of the world predicted much of our current culture. Students in this class will write weekly responses to the readings, and a final critical essay.
