Freedom From the Free Will: On Kafka's Laughter

Research output: Book/Research ReportAuthored Book

Abstract

When I was invited to write a short piece for the catalog of a staging of The Trial, I argued that Franz Kafka’s laughter enacts a critique of the prevalent concept of freedom as the free will of the individual, which has dominated both the political and the philosophical tradition in the Occident.1 I had not anticipated the reaction this position would provoke. Several posts on blogs as well as personal communications informed me in no uncertain terms that the idea is preposterous: Not only is Kafka’s world so overdetermined by tragedy that humor has no place in it, but Kafka’s is a world of imprisonment where freedom is totally absent. This book is not so much a direct reply to these protestations against my short piece in the theater catalog, as a response to certain ingrained presuppositions about Kafka’s work—and especially its “tragic” aspect, of which the replies to my short piece were symptomatic. I continue to maintain, and I develop here in some detail, that Kafka’s humor is a response to the Western conception of freedom, which he tirelessly presents in this narratives, and that this response implies an alternative conception of freedom.
Original languageEnglish
Place of PublicationU.S.
PublisherState University of New York Press
Number of pages190
ISBN (Print)9781438462394
Publication statusPublished - 2016

Keywords

  • 1883-1924
  • Franz
  • Kafka
  • criticism and interpretation
  • humor

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Freedom From the Free Will: On Kafka's Laughter'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this