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Author Geddes, Jennifer L., author.

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

Publication Info. Evanston, Illinois : Northwestern University Press, 2016.

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Description 1 online resource
text file
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."
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.
Local Note eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America
Subject Kafka, Franz, 1883-1924 -- Criticism and interpretation.
Kafka, Franz, 1883-1924.
Criticism and interpretation.
LITERARY CRITICISM -- General.
Genre/Form Electronic books.
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Other Form: Print version: Geddes, Jennifer L. Kafka's ethics of interpretation. Evanston, Illinois : Northwestern University Press, 2016 9780810132900 0810132907 (DLC) 2015034917 (OCoLC)920966356
ISBN 9780810132917 (electronic book)
0810132915 (electronic book)
9780810132900
0810132907
9780810132894
0810132893