Franz Kafka (level 6)

• Credit value: 15 credits at Level 6
• Coordinator: Peter Damrau
• Lecturer: Peter Damrau
• Assessment: a 3500-word essay

Franz Kafka is considered to be one of the most disturbing writers and one of the great modernists. His texts had an immense influence on the literature of the twentieth century. We will focus on personal writings, the novel The Trial, as well as on a range of short stories.

Indicative module syllabus

• Kafka and Prague
•  Letter to His Father (1919) and The Judgment (1913)
•  The Trial (1915)
•  A Country Doctor (1917)
•  A Report to an Academy (1917)
•  In the Penal Colony (1919)
•  A Hunger Artist (1922)
•  Kafka and the Movies

By the end of this module, you will:

• understand developments in twentieth-century prose writing
• have factual knowledge about the literary culture of Prague, the works of Franz Kafka and how they are used in other mediums such as film
• understand relevant sociological and religious discourses
• be able to evaluate ambiguous literary texts at a thematic and a stylistic level
• understand a range of theoretical and methodological approaches
• be able to work within these theoretical frameworks in the interpretation of prose texts.