(COLIT-UA ) and (SASEM-UG ) Class code

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1 Class code (COLIT-UA ) and (SASEM-UG ) Instructor Details Mgr. Richard Müller, Ph.D. Professors office, Malé náměstí 2, Thursday 12:00 12:45 Class Details Kafka and His Contexts SPRING 2015 Tue / Th 10:30 11:50 Location to be confirmed. Prerequisites None. Class Description The course is focused on exploring Kafka s work (stories, novels, diaries and letters) in the context of fin de siècle Prague and modernity as well as the relation between literary and non-literary texts, fiction and non-fiction. It also examines the cultural context of Central Europe (literature and the arts, but also the modern architecture of Adolf Loos, the urban sociology of Georg Simmel, Freud s analysis of the unconscious, the phenomenology of Franz Brentano etc.) in the first two decades of the 20 th century. In addition, the course looks at the intertextual and intermedial links between Kafka and 20th century Czech literature and film (Hašek, Hrabal, Kundera, Švankmajer). The topics discussed through Kafka s writing and other related texts include: man and metropolis, family and solitude, estrangement and familiarity, time, travelling, territoriality and identity, languages, animals and pain. We will be especially interested in how these phenomena transform when represented in and through the medium of fiction. Class discussions based on prepared readings, lectures and two field trips (Franz Kafka Museum and the Archive of National Letters, which stores some of Kafka s original manuscripts). Desired Understanding of Kafka s unique literary language and his place in the discourse of Modernism. Outcomes Comprehension of the basic concepts used in literary analysis and interpretation. Deeper understanding of the concepts of the self and the other, identity, collectivity and estrangement, writing and imagination by studying the selected works of literature and arts and philosophical writings. Assessment Components Assessment Expectations Grade conversion Class participation: 20%; bi/weekly response papers (7 in total, 4 points each): 25%; mid-term written test (concepts, written in-class interpretation): 25%; final essay (2,200 words): 30%. Failure to submit or fulfill any required course component results in failure of the class. Presentations (10 15 minutes each) are optional; they are designed as a make up opportunity for falling short of other assignments or requirements (worth of up to 3% of the final grade). Grade A: Excellent work demonstrating a critical and creative approach to the subject, clear understanding of the explored critical concepts and an ability to express thoughts cogently and persuasively both in class and in written form. Grade B: Very good work that demonstrates most, but not all of the criteria mentioned above. Grade C: Good work that demonstrates only some of the criteria mentioned above. Grade D: Satisfactory work. Grade E: Passable work. Grade F: Failure to achieve a passable standard. A= A-=91-95 B+=87-90 B=83-86 B-=81-82 C+=77-80 C=73-76 C-=

2 Attendance Policy D+=67-70 D=63-66 E+=61-62 E=58-60 F=below 58 Absences only for medical reasons and for religious observance will be excused. To obtain an excused absence, you are obliged to supply either a doctor s note or corroboration of your illness by a member of the housing staff (either an RA or a Building Manager). To be excused for religious observance, you must contact the instructor and the Associate Director via one week in advance of the holiday. Your absence is excused for the holiday only and does not include days of travel associated with the holiday. Unexcused absences will be penalized with a two percent deduction from your final course grade for every week of classes missed. Late Submission of Work Plagiarism Policy (a) Written work due in class must be submitted during the class time to the professor. (b) Final papers must be submitted by the submission date; late submissions without an agreed extension result in failure of the class. According to the Liberal Studies Program Student Handbook, plagiarism is defined as follows: Plagiarism is presenting someone else s work as though it were one s own. More specifically plagiarism is to present as one s own a sequence of words quoted without quotation marks from another writer, a paraphrased passage from another writer s work; facts or ideas gathered, organized and reported by someone else, orally and/or in writing. Since plagiarism is a matter of fact, not of the student s intention, it is crucial that acknowledgment of the sources be accurate and complete. Even where there is no conscious intention to deceive, the failure to make appropriate acknowledgment constitutes plagiarism. The College of Arts and Science s Academic Handbook defines plagiarism similarly and also specifies the following: presenting an oral report drawn without attribution from other sources (oral or written), writing a paragraph which, despite being in different words, expresses someone else s idea without a reference to the source of the idea, or submitting essentially the same paper in two different courses (unless both teachers have given their permission in advance). Receiving help on a take-home examination or quiz is also cheating and so is giving that help unless expressly permitted by the teacher (as in collaborative projects). While all this looks like a lot to remember, all you need to do is give credit where it is due, take credit only for original ideas, and ask your teacher or advisor when in doubt. Penalties for plagiarism range from failure for a paper, failure for the course or dismissal from the university. (Liberal Studies Program Student Handbook) Required Text(s) Reader: Kafka and His Contexts. Assembled by Richard Müller. New York University Franz Kafka: The Trial. Transl. by Willa Muir, Edwin Muir. London : Vintage Books ISBN Bohumil Hrabal: Too Loud a Solitude. Trans. by Michael Henry Heim. London : Abacus 1998, ISBN Supplemental Texts(s) (not required to purchase as copies are in NYU-P Library) Anderson, Mark (ed.): Reading Kafka. Prague, Politics, and the fin de siècle. New York : Schocken Books Anderson, Mark: Kafka's Clothes: Ornament and Aestheticism in the Habsburg fin de siècle. Oxford : Clarendon Press Benjamin, Walter: Franz Kafka. In Walter Benjamin: Illuminations. New York : Schocken Books Brod, Max: Franz Kafka: A Biography. New York : Schocken Books Deleuze, Gilles Guattari, Félix: Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature. Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press Rolleston, James (ed.): A Companion to the Works of Franz Kafka. Rochester, NY : Camden House Sayer, Derek: The Language of Nationality and the Nationality of Language: Prague Past 2

3 Internet Research Guidelines Additional Required Equipment Session 1 Feb 3 Session 2 Feb 5 Session 3 Feb 10 Session 4 Feb 12 Session 5 Feb 17 Session 6 Feb 19 Session 7 Feb 24 Session 8 Feb 26 Session 9 March 3 Session 10 and Present 153 (1996), Stach, Reiner: Kafka: The Decisive Years. Orlando : Harcourt Steiner, Peter: The Deserts of Bohemia. Czech Fiction and its Social Context. Ithaca : Cornell University Press Wagenbach, Klaus: Franz Kafka. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press 2003 Zilcosky, John: Kafka s Travels. Exoticism, Colonialism and the Traffic of Writing. New York : Palgrave/Macmillan Always treat any information about literary texts found on the Internet with very great caution. Trawling the Internet for material for essays is never a substitute for reading and learning from proper books, and the results are usually obvious in their derivation from cyberspace. Material culled from the internet will not generally be acceptable in essays. Properly referenced and accredited on-line journals may be worth consulting, however. None. Course overview Kafka s Early Texts Franz Kafka, Contemplation (1912) [selection, Reader, 10pp] Narratee [photocopy, 1p] Modern Metropolis Georg Simmel, The Metropolis and Mental Life (1903) [Reader, pp , 9pp] Modern Society Franz Kafka, Contemplation (1912) [selection 2, photocopy, 2pp] Nicklas Luhmann, Social and psychic systems, Observing (2002) [photocopy, 51pp] Response paper 1 Kafka s Trial (1) Franz Kafka, The Trial (1925), chapters 1 3 [pp = 74pp] Free Indirect Discourse [photocopy, 3pp] Kafka s Trial (2) Franz Kafka, The Trial (1925), chapters 4 6 [pp = 33pp] Narrated Time, Time of Narration [photocopy, 3pp] Response paper 2 Kafka s Trial (3) Franz Kafka, The Trial (1925), chapters 7 10 [pp = 105pp] Walter Benjamin, Franz Kafka, extract ( ) [photocopy, 8pp] After God Friedrich Nietzsche, Tha Gay Science, aphorisms 108, 109, 125, 343 (1882) [photocopy, 4pp] Friedrich Nietzsche, On The Genealogy of Morality, Preface, First and Second Essay (1887) [photocopy, 65 pp] Writing and Technology Franz Kafka, Diaries ( ) [selection, ca 5pp] Friedrich Kittler, Gramophone, Film, Typewriter, Preface, Introduction, extracts (1986) [photocopy, ca 30 pp] Response paper 3 Against Ornament 3

4 March 5 Session 11 March 10 Session 12 March 12 Session 13 March 17 Session 14 March 19 Session 15 March 24 Session 16 March 26 Session 17 March 31 Session 18 April 2 Spring Break April 6-10 Session 19 April 14 Session 20 April 16 Session 21 April 21 Session 22 April 23 Session 23 April 28 Session 24 Adolf Loos, Ornament and Crime (1908) [Reader, pp = 5pp] Klaus Wagenbach, Prague at the turn of the century (1958) [Reader, pp = 15pp] Milan Kundera, A Sentence (1991) [photocopy, 11pp] Kafka and the Family (1) Franz Kafka, The Judgment (1912) [Reader, pp = 25pp] Authentication [photocopy, 12pp] Kafka and the Family (2) Franz Kafka, The Cares of a Family Man ( ) [Reader, pp = 2pp] Response paper 4 Kafka and the Family (3) Franz Kafka, Letter to the Father (1919) [Reader, pp = 43pp] Gilles Deleuze Félix Guattari, An Exaggerated Oedipus (1975) [photocopy, 7pp] Writing as a Way Out? Franz Kafka, Letters to Felice, selection ( ) [Reader, pp = 21pp] Travels Franz Kafka, The Stoker (1914) [Reader, pp = 15pp] Franz Kafka Museum field trip Meet at Cihelná 2b, Praha 1 Animals Franz Kafka, A Report to the Academy (1920) [photocopy, 9pp] Impossible Fictional World [photocopy, 4pp] Presentation: Posthumanism [materials provided by the professor, 20pp] MID-TERM WRITTEN EXAM Home Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis (1915) [Reader, pp = 26pp] Response paper 5 Archives of National Letters fieldtrip Meet at Pohořelec tram stop Pain (1) Franz Kafka, In the Penal Colony (1919) [Reader, pp = 24pp] Pain (2) Franz Kafka, A Hunger Artist (1922) [Reader, pp = 9pp] Presentation: Sadomasochism [materials provided by professor, 17pp] Response paper 6 Sound Franz Kafka, Josephine, the Singer, or the Mouse Folk (1924) [photocopy, 9pp] Writers Kafka 4

5 April 30 Session 25 May 5 Session 26 May 7 Session 27 May 12 Session 28 May 14 (last day of classes) Session 29 May 19 Final exam Session 30 May 21 Final exam Classroom Etiquette Required Cocurricular Activities Milan Kundera, The Castrating Shadow of Saint Garta (1991) [photocopy, 11pp] Jorge Luis Borges, Kafka and his Precursors [photocopy, 2pp] Kafka s Contemporary (1) Jaroslav Hašek, The Good Soldier Švejk, chapters 1 5 ( ) [Reader, pp = 39pp] Conversational Maxims [photocopy, 5pp] Response paper 7 Kafka s Contemporary (2) Jaroslav Hašek, The Good Soldier Švejk, chapters 6 8 [Reader, pp = 18pp] Karel Kosík, Hašek and Kafka: /1923 [photocopy, 6pp] Response paper 7 After Kafka: Hrabal Bohumil Hrabal, Too Loud a Solitude (1980) [99p] Presentation: The Grotesque [materials provided by professor, 20pp] After Kafka: Švankmajer creening: Jan Švankmajer s short films, selection (Dimensions of Dialogue, Darkness-Light-Darkness, The Flat, The Pendulum, The Pit and Hope) EXAM WEEK FINAL PAPER DUE Toilet breaks should be taken before or after class or during class breaks. Eating is not permitted. Mobile phones should be set on silent and should not be used in class except for emergencies. Visit to Franz Kafka Museum and the Archives of National Letters. 5