Kafka Goes to Palestine

For more than a century, Franz Kafka has posed a challenge to interpretation. Philosophers have debated his work while theologians have probed its mystical elements. More recently, the legal battle over his physical papers took place in an Israeli court, confounding the Zionist identity of religion and nationalism. At the heart of this history are two questions which remain with us today: What can literature do? And for whom does it belong?

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We will begin the seminar by reading Kafka. Guided by a selection of parables and short stories, we will immerse ourselves in the intricacy of interpretation. How do we understand Kafka’s world: of objects part-alive and bureaucratic mazes; of catastrophic events and narrative nonchalance? Along with Kafka, we will read excerpts from his commentators - Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, and Hannah Arendt - dwelling upon their notions of failure and hope.

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In the second half of the seminar, we will follow Kafka to Palestine, gauging his ambivalence not only about religion and nationalism but also about literature itself. Considering Kafka's request to have his remaining papers burned, we will trace their fate as the literary property of a religious state. In doing so, we will ask how a piece of writing can make claims about justice, including its own right not to be owned.

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Throughout the seminar, we will reflect on the role of Kafka in anti-Zionist struggles. How might literature obstruct the logic of settler-colonialism, especially in the face of genocide? In this context, we will consider Kafka's reception by Mahmoud Darwish, Samih al-Qasim, and contemporary Gazan writers. And if writing can resist state power, how might it withstand the subtle, yet no less insidious, commodification imposed by the market?