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BIH Masterclass: Image and Accident in Kafka's Novels - Session 2

When:
Venue: Birkbeck Main Building, Malet Street

No booking required

BIH Masterclass: Image and Accident in Kafka's Novels - Session 2

Speaker: Howard Caygill, Kingston University London and University of Paris 8.

Chair: Jacqueline Rose, Co-Director, Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities

In the Yearbook of the Workers Accident Insurance Institute for 1914 Kafka published the results of an illegal photo-surveillance campaign of hazardous quarries in Northern Bohemia. 'Accident Prevention in Quarries' was contemporary with The Trial and the final chapter of America (Missing Person) and shares with them a fascination with the violent image and the accident. The Masterclass will reflect on the crossings between Kafka's accident insurance writings and his three novels, beginning with the narrative of racial violence and extermination in America (Missing Person), moving afterwards to the pornography of violence in The Trial and concluding with the images surviving at the fringes of an aniconic violence in The Castle.

Session two: The Trial as 'Pornograph'

Free event, open to all: Book your place

This is the second of three sessions that make up this Masterclass. The other sessions are on:

You are welcome to join us for one or all of the sessions.

Suggested reading:

  • Franz Kafka, The Complete Novels, trs. Willa and Edwin Muir, Vintage Books
  • Franz Kafka, The Office Writings, trs. & eds., Stanley Corngold et.al., Princeton University Press

Howard Caygill is Professor of Modern European Philosophy at Kingston University London and currently visiting Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Paris 8.

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