Read more
Zusatztext In this brilliant and original study, Isak Winkel Holm illuminates what Kafka called his uncanny 'dreamlike inner life,' and how it relates to the Prague author's external circumstances. In lucid and lively prose, Winkel Holm produces nuanced literary readings of Kafka's doubled vision--or what he terms his 'stereoscopic literary style'--to challenge the traditional picture of Kafka as an apolitical and solipsistic writer. Informationen zum Autor Isak Winkel Holm is Professor of Comparative Literature at University of Copenhagen, Denmark. His previous publications include Tanken i billedet. Søren Kierkegaards poetik ( Thinking in Images: The Poetics of Søren Kierkegaard , Gyldendal 1998) and Stormløb mod grænsen: det politiske hos Franz Kafka ( Storming the Border: the Political in Kafka , Gyldendal 2015). Vorwort A deep investigation into Franz Kafka's style that leads to a new understanding of the relationship between literature and politics in his work. Zusammenfassung In 1911, Franz Kafka encountered the Kaiser Panorama: a stereoscopic peep show offering an illusion of three-dimensional depth. After the experience, he began to emulate the apparatus in his literary sketches, developing a style we might call "stereoscopic," juxtaposing, like the optical stereoscope, two images of the same object seen from slightly different perspectives.Isak Winkel Holm argues that Kafka’s stereoscopic style is crucial to an understanding of the relation between literature and politics in Kafka's work. At the level of content, the stereoscopic style offers a representation of the basic order of a specific community. At the level of form, the stereoscopic style is structured as the juxtaposition of two dissimilar images of the same community. At the level of function, finally, the style provokes a reconsideration, and perhaps even a reconfiguration, of the social order itself. With insights from literary studies, philosophical aesthetics and political theory, Kafka’s Stereoscopes offers a detailed but highly readable argument for the relevance of Kafka's literary works in today’s political reality. Inhaltsverzeichnis List of FiguresAcknowledgementsList of Abbreviations Introduction: Kafka and the Political: in the Kaiserpanorama PART ONE 1. We Don’t Want to Accept Him: Content, Form, and Function of Kafka’s Stereoscopes: “Fellowship”2. They Are Not Human Beings: The Content of Kafka’s Stereoscopes: the Prague Asbestos Works Hermann & Co3. Simultaneously Also Nothing: The Form of Kafka’s Stereoscopes: “The Judgment”4. Storming the Border: The Function of Kafka’s Stereoscopes: “Researches of a Dog” PART TWO 5. A Construction of Chance and Laws: Kafka in the Yiddish Theater: Der Meschumed 6. A Weakness of Imagination: Kafka in China: “Building the Great Wall of China” PART THREE 7. A Matter of Justice: Karl as Defence Lawyer: Amerika 8. I Speak for Them, Not for Myself: Josef K. as Popular Speaker: The Trial 9. As If the Whole of Existence Were Transformed: K. as Liberator of Girls: The Castle 10. Worthy of the Law: Conclusion: “On the Question of the Laws” Bibliography Index ...