Agamben's Joyful Kafka: Finding Freedom Beyond Subordination - Softcover

Snoek, Anke

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1628921323 ISBN 13: 9781628921328

Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014

Synopsis

Both Giorgio Agamben and Franz Kafka are best known for their gloomy political worldview. A cautious study of Agamben's references on Kafka, however, reveals another dimension right at the intersection of their works: a complex and unorthodox theory of freedom. The inspiration emerges from Agamben's claims that 'it is a very poor reading of Kafka's works that sees in them only a summation of the anguish of a guilty man before the inscrutable power'. Virtually all of Kafka's stories leave us puzzled about what really happened. Was Josef K., who is butchered like a dog, defeated? And what about the meaningless but in his own way complete creature Odradek? Agamben's work sheds new light on these questions and arrives, through Kafka, at different strategies for freedom at the point where this freedom is most blatantly violated.

About this title

Book Description:

The first book to articulate the impact of Kafka on Agamben's thought

About the Author:

Anke Snoek is currently completing her PhD thesis on addiction, moral identity and moral agency at Macquarie University, Australia. She has published articles and book chapters on autonomy, freedom, Agamben, Kafka, Foucault and addiction.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1628921323
• ISBN 13: 9781628921328
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 182