Kafka's ethics of interpretation : between tyranny and despair / Jennifer L. Geddes.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Geddes, Jennifer L., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Kafka, Franz, 1883-1924--Criticism and interpretation.

Kafka, Franz.

Kafka, Franz, 1883-1924.

Criticism and interpretation.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

viii, 165 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Evanston, Illinois : Northwestern University Press, 2016.

Summary:

Kafka's Ethics of Interpretation refutes the oft-repeated claim-made by Kafka's greatest interpreters, including Walter Benjamin and Harold Bloom-that Kafka sought to evade interpretation of his writings. Jennifer L. Geddes shows that this claim about Kafka's deliberate uninterpretability is not only wrong, it also misconstrues a central concern of his work. Kafka was not trying to avoid or prevent interpretation; rather, his works are centrally concerned with it. Geddes explores the interpretation that takes place within, and in response to, Kafka's writings, and pairs Kafka's works with readings of Sigmund Freud, Pierre Bourdieu, Tzvetan Todorov, Emmanuel Levinas, and others. She argues that Kafka explores interpretation as a mode of power and violence, but also as a mode of engagement with the world and others. Kafka, she argues, challenges us to rethink the ways we read texts, engage others, and navigate the world through our interpretations of them. Book jacket.

Contents:

The tyranny of simplicity and the fantasy of completion : Kafka's "Letter to his father" and Freud's Interpretation of dreams

The power of interpretation and the interpretation of power : Kafka's "The judgment" and Bourdieu's Social theory

The virtue of hesitation and the temptation of resolution : Kafka's "The metamorphosis" and Todorov's Fantastic

The ethics of attention and the meaning of pain : Kafka's "In the penal colony" and Levinas's "Useless suffering."

Notes:

Based on the author's thesis (doctoral)--University of Virginia, 1999.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 157-162) and index.

ISBN:

9780810132900

0810132907

9780810132894

0810132893

OCLC:

920966356