Lecture - Kafka's Desk: The Writer at Work

German Studies: New Perspectives

Mahindra Humanities Center

Tuesday, October 13, 5:00 - 7:00

Plimpton Room, Barker 133

Andreas Kilcher (ETH-Zürich)

Franz Kafka's texts are among the most enigmatic in world literature. Andreas Kilcher proposes a new approach to understanding them: less through interpretation and more through an examination of Kafka’s writing practice. The question is very concrete: How should we imagine the writer Kafka at work? – Certainly not as a reclusive author who, in lonely nights, jotted down coded, ingenious dream messages, but rather as a textual craftsman who wove the conversations of his time into his writing. This is evident in the fact that reading and writing are inextricably intertwined for Kafka: For him, writing was not merely inventing, but (text) processing, and therefore labor. Moreover, reading was not merely the reception of information but an integral part of his active writing process. Kafka read by writing.

Andreas Kilcher is Professor of Literature and Cultural Studies at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zürich. He has been a visiting Professor at Princeton University, Stanford University, UC Davis, and Tel Aviv University. Main areas of research include the relationship between literature and knowledge, Jewish literature and culture, and Kabbalah and esotericism. He has published a wide range of monographs, edited volumes, articles, dictionary entries, and reviews in these areas. Kilcher’s book on Franz Kafka’s drawings has been translated into more than ten languages and appeared on several bestseller lists. His most recent book, Kafkas Werkstatt: Der Schriftsteller bei der Arbeit (Kafka’s Workshop: The Writer at Work), has also recently appeared. He is currently working on a book on Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus.