Overview
While his memory languished under Nazi censorship, Franz Kafka covertly circulated through occupied France and soon emerged as a cultural icon, read by the most influential intellectuals of the time as a prophet of the rampant bureaucracy, totalitarian oppression, and absurdity that branded the twentieth century. In tracing the history of Kafka’s reception in postwar France, John T. Hamilton explores how the work of a German-Jewish writer from Prague became a modern classic capable of addressing universal themes of the human condition. Hamilton also considers how Kafka's unique literary corpus came to stimulate reflection in diverse movements, critical approaches, and philosophical schools, from surrealism and existentialism through psychoanalysis, phenomenology, and structuralism to Marxism, deconstruction, and feminism. The story of Kafka’s afterlife in Paris thus furnishes a key chapter in the unfolding of French theory, which continues to guide how we read literature and understand its relationship to the world.
Full Product Details
Author: John T. Hamilton (William R. Kenan Professor of German and Comparative Literature, Harvard University, USA) ,
Imke Meyer (University of Illinois at Chicago USA)
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Imprint: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Dimensions:
Width: 14.00cm
, Height: 2.50cm
, Length: 21.60cm
Weight: 0.454kg
ISBN: 9798765100370
Pages: 200
Publication Date: 23 March 2023
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Tertiary & Higher Education
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Manufactured on demand
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.
Reviews
Kafka lovers who are inclined to emulate their hero had better be en garde while opening this book: Kafka wrote, 'There is no having, only a being, only a state of being that craves the last breath.' John Hamilton's France/Kafka is literally breathtaking in its historical sense, theoretical finesse, and visual intelligence, observant of the finest telling detail. I risked danger and read France/Kafka in one go and with unstinting joy: there is no finer critic-close reader and philosopher-than John Hamilton, who, in Kafka and France, has found his predestined subject. * Stanley Corngold, Professor Emeritus of German and Comparative Literature, Princeton University, USA * France/Kafka: An Author in Theory shows John T. Hamilton at a new peak of his scholarly powers and demonstrates what Comparative Literature can accomplish today. An elegant dance in French, German, and English, Hamilton's book provides a comprehensive reconstruction of Kafka's aerolithic impact within the French intellectual context from surrealism and existentialism to feminism and deconstruction. Kafka, who considered himself a spiritual son of Gustave Flaubert, turns out to be the elusive godfather of French theory. While unfolding an erudite dossier of a century of cultural history, France/Kafka discreetly designs its own literary theory, revealing all reading as UEbersetzung. Franz Kafka is an author in continued translation: John T. Hamilton passes on the Imperial Message for the 21st century. * Eckart Goebel, Professor for Comparative Literature, University of Tubingen, Germany *
Kafka lovers who are inclined to emulate their hero had better be en garde while opening this book: Kafka wrote, 'There is no having, only a being, only a state of being that craves the last breath.' John Hamilton’s France/Kafka is literally breathtaking in its historical sense, theoretical finesse, and visual intelligence, observant of the finest telling detail. I risked danger and read France/Kafka in one go and with unstinting joy: there is no finer critic—close reader and philosopher—than John Hamilton, who, in Kafka and France, has found his predestined subject. * Stanley Corngold, Professor Emeritus of German and Comparative Literature, Princeton University, USA * France/Kafka: An Author in Theory shows John T. Hamilton at a new peak of his scholarly powers and demonstrates what Comparative Literature can accomplish today. An elegant dance in French, German, and English, Hamilton’s book provides a comprehensive reconstruction of Kafka’s aerolithic impact within the French intellectual context from surrealism and existentialism to feminism and deconstruction. Kafka, who considered himself a spiritual son of Gustave Flaubert, turns out to be the elusive godfather of French theory. While unfolding an erudite dossier of a century of cultural history, France/Kafka discreetly designs its own literary theory, revealing all reading as Übersetzung. Franz Kafka is an author in continued translation: John T. Hamilton passes on the Imperial Message for the 21st century. * Eckart Goebel, Professor for Comparative Literature, University of Tübingen, Germany *
This valuable new addition to the vast terrain of Kafka scholarship examines in detail the early reception of the Prague author in France. Hamilton’s [approach] is not a novel method—in the past couple of decades, such a richly contextualized approach has become the gold standard in the overlapping fields of reception history, translation studies, and comparative literature—but it is a compelling one. Coupled with Hamilton’s lively, readable style, these merits will appeal to a wide range of students and academics interested in Kafka as well as in twentieth-century French theory. * Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies * A beautifully multilayered take on the interrelations between Kafka’s works and the French theorists of the twentieth century who studied them. ... [France/Kafka] lends itself as a textbook for courses on literary theory and as an introduction to critical methodologies. And lastly, it is a pleasure to follow John Hamilton’s expert guidance across time, languages, and cultures to learn about the chiastic, but intimate relation between Franz and France. * The Comparatist * Kafka lovers who are inclined to emulate their hero had better be en garde while opening this book: Kafka wrote, 'There is no having, only a being, only a state of being that craves the last breath.' John Hamilton’s France/Kafka is literally breathtaking in its historical sense, theoretical finesse, and visual intelligence, observant of the finest telling detail. I risked danger and read France/Kafka in one go and with unstinting joy: there is no finer critic—close reader and philosopher—than John Hamilton, who, in Kafka and France, has found his predestined subject. * Stanley Corngold, Professor Emeritus of German and Comparative Literature, Princeton University, USA * France/Kafka: An Author in Theory shows John T. Hamilton at a new peak of his scholarly powers and demonstrates what Comparative Literature can accomplish today. An elegant dance in French, German, and English, Hamilton’s book provides a comprehensive reconstruction of Kafka’s aerolithic impact within the French intellectual context from surrealism and existentialism to feminism and deconstruction. Kafka, who considered himself a spiritual son of Gustave Flaubert, turns out to be the elusive godfather of French theory. While unfolding an erudite dossier of a century of cultural history, France/Kafka discreetly designs its own literary theory, revealing all reading as Übersetzung. Franz Kafka is an author in continued translation: John T. Hamilton passes on the Imperial Message for the 21st century. * Eckart Goebel, Professor for Comparative Literature, University of Tübingen, Germany *
[A] beautifully multilayered take on the interrelations between Kafka’s works and the French theorists of the twentieth century who studied them. ... [France/Kafka] lends itself as a textbook for courses on literary theory and as an introduction to critical methodologies. And lastly, it is a pleasure to follow John Hamilton’s expert guidance across time, languages, and cultures to learn about the chiastic, but intimate relation between Franz and France. * The Comparatist * Kafka lovers who are inclined to emulate their hero had better be en garde while opening this book: Kafka wrote, 'There is no having, only a being, only a state of being that craves the last breath.' John Hamilton’s France/Kafka is literally breathtaking in its historical sense, theoretical finesse, and visual intelligence, observant of the finest telling detail. I risked danger and read France/Kafka in one go and with unstinting joy: there is no finer critic—close reader and philosopher—than John Hamilton, who, in Kafka and France, has found his predestined subject. * Stanley Corngold, Professor Emeritus of German and Comparative Literature, Princeton University, USA * France/Kafka: An Author in Theory shows John T. Hamilton at a new peak of his scholarly powers and demonstrates what Comparative Literature can accomplish today. An elegant dance in French, German, and English, Hamilton’s book provides a comprehensive reconstruction of Kafka’s aerolithic impact within the French intellectual context from surrealism and existentialism to feminism and deconstruction. Kafka, who considered himself a spiritual son of Gustave Flaubert, turns out to be the elusive godfather of French theory. While unfolding an erudite dossier of a century of cultural history, France/Kafka discreetly designs its own literary theory, revealing all reading as Übersetzung. Franz Kafka is an author in continued translation: John T. Hamilton passes on the Imperial Message for the 21st century. * Eckart Goebel, Professor for Comparative Literature, University of Tübingen, Germany *
Author Information
John T. Hamilton is William R. Kenan Professor of German and Comparative Literature at Harvard University, USA. He is the author of seven books, including most recently Philology of the Flesh (University of Chicago Press, 2018) and Complacency: Classics and its Displacement in Higher Education. (University of Chicago Press, 2022).
