Horizontality and Impossibility in Kafka's Parabolic Quests
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The Atheist's Bible: Diderot's 'Éléments De Physiologie'
The Atheist’s Bible Diderot’s Éléments de physiologie Caroline Warman In off ering the fi rst book-length study of the ‘Éléments de physiologie’, Warman raises the stakes high: she wants to show that, far from being a long-unknown draf , it is a powerful philosophical work whose hidden presence was visible in certain circles from the Revolut on on. And it works! Warman’s study is original and st mulat ng, a historical invest gat on that is both rigorous and fascinat ng. —François Pépin, École normale supérieure, Lyon This is high-quality intellectual and literary history, the erudit on and close argument suff used by a wit and humour Diderot himself would surely have appreciated. —Michael Moriarty, University of Cambridge In ‘The Atheist’s Bible’, Caroline Warman applies def , tenacious and of en wit y textual detect ve work to the case, as she explores the shadowy passage and infl uence of Diderot’s materialist writ ngs in manuscript samizdat-like form from the Revolut onary era through to the Restorat on. —Colin Jones, Queen Mary University of London ‘Love is harder to explain than hunger, for a piece of fruit does not feel the desire to be eaten’: Denis Diderot’s Éléments de physiologie presents a world in fl ux, turning on the rela� onship between man, ma� er and mind. In this late work, Diderot delves playfully into the rela� onship between bodily sensa� on, emo� on and percep� on, and asks his readers what it means to be human in the absence of a soul. -
Complete Stories by Franz Kafka
The Complete Stories by Franz Kafka Back Cover: "An important book, valuable in itself and absolutely fascinating. The stories are dreamlike, allegorical, symbolic, parabolic, grotesque, ritualistic, nasty, lucent, extremely personal, ghoulishly detached, exquisitely comic. numinous and prophetic." -- New York Times "The Complete Stories is an encyclopedia of our insecurities and our brave attempts to oppose them." -- Anatole Broyard Franz Kafka wrote continuously and furiously throughout his short and intensely lived life, but only allowed a fraction of his work to be published during his lifetime. Shortly before his death at the age of forty, he instructed Max Brod, his friend and literary executor, to burn all his remaining works of fiction. Fortunately, Brod disobeyed. The Complete Stories brings together all of Kafka's stories, from the classic tales such as "The Metamorphosis," "In the Penal Colony" and "The Hunger Artist" to less-known, shorter pieces and fragments Brod released after Kafka's death; with the exception of his three novels, the whole of Kafka's narrative work is included in this volume. The remarkable depth and breadth of his brilliant and probing imagination become even more evident when these stories are seen as a whole. This edition also features a fascinating introduction by John Updike, a chronology of Kafka's life, and a selected bibliography of critical writings about Kafka. Copyright © 1971 by Schocken Books Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Schocken Books Inc., New York. Distributed by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. The foreword by John Updike was originally published in The New Yorker. -
Prayer Or Despair? the Parables of the Friend at Midnight and the Unjust Judge
PRAYER OR DESPAIR? THE PARABLES OF THE FRIEND AT MIDNIGHT AND THE UNJUST JUDGE By Ronald A. Julian An Integrative Thesis Submitted To The Faculty of Reformed Theological Seminary In Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree Master of Arts THESIS ADVISOR: ________________________________ Dr. Simon Kistemaker RTS/VIRTUAL PRESIDENT ________________________________ Dr. Andrew J. Peterson September 2006 ii CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ........................................................................................................ v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.................................................................................................. vi Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................1 2. METHODOLOGY.....................................................................................................3 The Interpretation of Parables............................................................................3 Higher Criticism.................................................................................................4 3. THE PARABLE OF THE FRIEND AT MIDNIGHT ...............................................8 Background and Context....................................................................................9 Exegetical Details in the Story.........................................................................12 The Meaning of the Parable.............................................................................22 4. THE PARABLE OF -
The Place of the Bridge
The Place of the Bridge Jennifer Kabat Bristol Images Kate Newby The Promise Arnolfini, 2014 Perhaps it’s better though to respect the dead and the gaps, The Place of to ask a question about being a woman where love represents a path to a better life and marriage has value, and to ask this in a city founded by a merchant class, where money has the Bridge always been at the forefront. For her and countless other women at the time marriage is about something more than love. A woman has an exchange value2 and marriage a moral worth. Part I. This is also an age when skirts hobble women, so to be saved by skirts and afterward face people’s scorn as they discuss your affairs in the newspaper…. To be a woman in The Fall 1885 and want better prospects, prospects that only come Look up. A woman tumbles from the sky. The mud on the through marriage, and yet to be saved by your clothes, clothes River Avon glistens silver in the light at low tide. Her skirts designed to make it impossible to run, to jump, to escape…. 1 The Bridge is Isambard Kingdom billow around her like a parachute as she spins over and To be poor or working class (about the same thing then) and Brunel’s Clifton Suspension Bridge, the first major project the engineer over. Time, life, love is suspended as her fall slows, and she want better…. To be the one woman who survives seems a proposed and a wonder of the wonders what she is doing here, as she panics, as she hits profound irony. -
The Individual and the «Spiritual» World in Kafka's Novels
Studies in 20th Century Literature Volume 3 Issue 1 Article 3 8-1-1978 The Individual and the «Spiritual» World in Kafka's Novels Ulrich Fülleborn Universitat Erlangen-Niirnberg Follow this and additional works at: https://newprairiepress.org/sttcl Part of the German Literature Commons, and the Modern Literature Commons This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. Recommended Citation Fülleborn, Ulrich (1978) "The Individual and the «Spiritual» World in Kafka's Novels," Studies in 20th Century Literature: Vol. 3: Iss. 1, Article 3. https://doi.org/10.4148/2334-4415.1057 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by New Prairie Press. It has been accepted for inclusion in Studies in 20th Century Literature by an authorized administrator of New Prairie Press. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Individual and the «Spiritual» World in Kafka's Novels Abstract Following an earlier essay by the same author on 'Perspektivismus und Parabolik' in Kafka's shorter prose pieces, this article gives a description of the structure of Kafka's novels in terms of the concepts 'the individual' (cf. Kierkegaard's 'individuals') and 'the spiritual world' (Kafka: «There is no world but the spiritual one»). Joseph K. and the land-surveyor K. become individuals by leaving the world of everyday life and passing over into the incomprehensible spiritual world of trials and a village-castle community, in the same way that Karl Rossmann had passed over into the 'Nature-theatre of Oklahoma' before them. And they remain as individuals, since in this world they struggle to hold their own. -
Laughing with Kafka After Promethean Shame
PROBLEMI INTERNATIONAL,Laughing with vol. Kafka 2, no. 2,after 2018 Promethean © Society for Shame Theoretical Psychoanalysis Laughing with Kafka after Promethean Shame Jean-Michel Rabaté We have learned that Kafka’s main works deploy a fully-fledged political critique whose main weapon is derision.1 This use of laughter to satirize totalitarian regimes has been analyzed under the name of the “political grotesque” by Joseph Vogl. Here is what Vogl writes: From the terror of secret scenes of torture to childish officials, from the filth of the bureaucratic order to atavistic rituals of power runs a track of comedy that forever indicates the absence of reason, the element of the arbitrary in the execution of power and rule. How- ever, the element of the grotesque does not unmask and merely denounce. Rather it refers—as Foucault once pointed out—to the inevitability, the inescapability of precisely the grotesque, ridicu- lous, loony, or abject sides of power. Kafka’s “political grotesque” displays an unsystematic arbitrariness, which belongs to the func- tions of the apparatus itself. […] Kafka’s comedy turns against a diagnosis that conceives of the modernization of political power as 1 This essay is a condensed version of the second part of Kafka L.O.L., forthcoming from Quodlibet in 2018. In the first part, I address laughter in Kaf- ka’s works, showing that it takes its roots in the culture of a “comic grotesque” dominant in Expressionist German culture. Günther Anders’s groundbreaking book on Kafka then highlights the political dimensions of the work while criti- cizing Kafka’s Promethean nihilism. -
The Parables of Jesus: Friendly Subversive Speech
The Parables of Jesus: Friendly Subversive Speech Introduction 4 Tell it Slant Typology and Parables The Four Gospels and Parables Messianic Consciousness Matthew’s Sermon of Parables 1 The Parable of the Sower 13 “Holy Seed” Isaiah’s Open Secret Jesus’ Interpretation Good-Soil Understanding 2 The Parable of the Weeds among the Wheat 22 Mustard Seeds and Yeast Echoes of Asaph Jesus’ Explanation 3 The Parables of the Hidden Treasure, the Pearl, and the Net 32 The Joy of the Gospel The Net New Treasures 4 The Parable of the Good Samaritan 37 Setting the Scene Augustine’s Allegory The Expert Who is my Neighbor? Messianic Edge 5 The Parable of the Friend at Midnight 50 Midnight Request Global Neighbors How Much More! 6 The Parable of the Rich Fool 55 Do We Practice What We Preach? The Meaning of Life All Kinds of Greed The Fool Jesus’ Hierarchy of Needs 7 The Parable of the Faithful Servants and the Exuberant Master 67 The Master is Coming! The Master Serves 8 The Parable of the Faithless Servant and the Furious Master 73 Managerial Responsibilities Managers of the Mysteries of God’s Revelation The Master’s Fury 1 9 The Parable of the Barren Fig Tree 80 Fig Tree Judgment Repentance Productivity 10 The Parable of the Great Banquet 86 The Narrow Door Jesus Will Not Be Managed Tension Around the Table Mundane Excuses The Host 11 The Parable of the Tower Builder and King at War 94 Christ-less Christianity Counting the Cost Who Among You? 12 The Parables of the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, and the Lost Sons 101 The Compassionate Father Prodigal -
The Big Leap: Heidegger, Nietzsche, Kafka Shai Biderman
The Big Leap: Heidegger, Nietzsche, Kafka Shai Biderman IWM Junior Visiting Fellows’ Conference Proceedings, Vol. XXV © 2009 by the author Readers may redistribute this article to other individuals for noncommercial use, provided that the text and this note remain intact. This article may not be reprinted or redistributed for commercial use without prior written permission from the author. If you have any questions about permissions, please contact the IWM. Deeply lost in the night. Just as one sometimes lowers one’s head to reflect, thus to be utterly lost in the night. All around people are asleep. It’s just play acting, and innocent self-deception, that they sleep in houses, in safe beds, under a safe roof, stretched out or curled up on mattresses, in sheets, under blankets; in reality they have flocked together as they had once upon a time and again later in a deserted region, a camp in the open, a countless number of men, an army, a people, under a cold sky on cold earth, collapsed where once they had stood, forehead pressed on the arm, face to the ground, breathing quietly. And you are watching, are one of the watchmen, you find the next one by brandishing a burning stick from the brushwood pile beside you. Why are you watching? Someone must watch, it is said. Someone must be there.[1] Introduction One of the defining characteristics of the later Heidegger is the concern for art and its place in humanity’s relation to Being.[2] In his Nietzsche lectures, as in his lecture on the origin of the work of art, Heidegger constructs a hermeneutical picture of the world in which art, the artistic lifestyle and the image of the artist play an important role. -
David Foster Wallace
across the state of Illinois sat at their desks, depend on what communication-theorists curled over their pencils, stuck their tongues sometimes call "exformation," which is a cer- .between their teeth, and wrote five-paragraph tain quantity of vital information removed from essays about wearing uniforms to school. All but evoked by a communication in such a way except one. His essay began, "I never thought as to cause a kind of explosion of associative much about dancin' circles before today, but if connections within the recipient. This is prob- that's what you want to know about, well, here ably why the effect of both short stories and goes ... " And somewhere in North Carolina, jokes often feels sudden and percussive, like some poor soul will reach into the stack of 500 the venting of a long-stuck valve. It's not for essays she will have to read that day. Four hun- nothing that Kafka spoke of literature as "a dred and ninety-nine will be about wearing hatchet with which we chop at the frozen seas uniforms, and one won't. It will be "off topic." inside us." Nor is it an accident that the tech- The IGAP rules say that it must receive the nical achievement of great short stories is often lowest possible score. But I wish I could watch called "compression"-for both the pressure her face when she reads that first line. If she and the release are already inside the reader. keeps reading and smiles, I know there might What Kafka seems able to do better than just be hope for us. -
The Complete Stories
The Complete Stories by Franz Kafka a.b.e-book v3.0 / Notes at the end Back Cover : "An important book, valuable in itself and absolutely fascinating. The stories are dreamlike, allegorical, symbolic, parabolic, grotesque, ritualistic, nasty, lucent, extremely personal, ghoulishly detached, exquisitely comic. numinous and prophetic." -- New York Times "The Complete Stories is an encyclopedia of our insecurities and our brave attempts to oppose them." -- Anatole Broyard Franz Kafka wrote continuously and furiously throughout his short and intensely lived life, but only allowed a fraction of his work to be published during his lifetime. Shortly before his death at the age of forty, he instructed Max Brod, his friend and literary executor, to burn all his remaining works of fiction. Fortunately, Brod disobeyed. Page 1 The Complete Stories brings together all of Kafka's stories, from the classic tales such as "The Metamorphosis," "In the Penal Colony" and "The Hunger Artist" to less-known, shorter pieces and fragments Brod released after Kafka's death; with the exception of his three novels, the whole of Kafka's narrative work is included in this volume. The remarkable depth and breadth of his brilliant and probing imagination become even more evident when these stories are seen as a whole. This edition also features a fascinating introduction by John Updike, a chronology of Kafka's life, and a selected bibliography of critical writings about Kafka. Copyright © 1971 by Schocken Books Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Schocken Books Inc., New York. Distributed by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. -
The Law Is Not a Thing: Kafkan (Im)Materialism and Imitation Jam
Law Text Culture Volume 23 Legal Materiality Article 14 2019 The Law is Not a Thing: Kafkan (Im)materialism and Imitation Jam James R. Martel San Francisco State University Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.uow.edu.au/ltc Recommended Citation Martel, James R., The Law is Not a Thing: Kafkan (Im)materialism and Imitation Jam, Law Text Culture, 23, 2019, 240-261. Available at:https://ro.uow.edu.au/ltc/vol23/iss1/14 Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact the UOW Library: [email protected] The Law is Not a Thing: Kafkan (Im)materialism and Imitation Jam Abstract In this article, I look at the question of how the law continually refounds itself in relationship to the material world by borrowing from that materiality a sense of its own tangibility (which it otherwise does not have) even as it in turn draws material orbits into its object lending them a certain sense of power and nobility (which they otherwise do not have either). This exchange suggests an unexpected vulnerability for the law insofar as it needs the material world to exist at all while the material world does not require an association with the law per se (and arguably is worse off in terms of the exchange it engages with the law insofar as it becomes complicit, at least by association, with law and it various forms of violence). To demonstrate a bit of that vulnerability I look at a US supreme course case 62 Cases of Jam v. -
Animal Studies Ecocriticism and Kafkas Animal Stories 4
Citation for published version: Goodbody, A 2016, Animal Studies: Kafka's Animal Stories. in Handbook of Ecocriticism and Cultural Ecology. Handbook of English and American Studies, vol. 2, De Gruyter, Berlin, pp. 249-272. Publication date: 2016 Document Version Peer reviewed version Link to publication University of Bath Alternative formats If you require this document in an alternative format, please contact: [email protected] General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 26. Sep. 2021 Animal Studies: Kafka’s Animal Stories Axel Goodbody Franz Kafka, who lived in the city of Prague as a member of the German-speaking Jewish minority, is usually thought of as a quintessentially urban author. The role played by nature and the countryside in his work is insignificant. He was also no descriptive realist: his domain is commonly referred to as the ‘inner life’, and he is chiefly remembered for his depiction of outsider situations accompanied by feelings of inadequacy and guilt, in nightmarish scenarios reflecting the alienation of the modern subject. Kafka was only known to a small circle of when he died of tuberculosis, aged 40, in 1924. However, his enigmatic tales, bafflingly grotesque but memorably disturbing because they resonate with readers’ own experiences, anxieties and dreams, their sense of marginality in family and society, and their yearning for self-identity, rapidly acquired the status of world literature after the Holocaust and the Second World War.