Beyond Self-Assertion: A Life of Reading Kafka

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents vii
3. Preface ix
4. Kafka’s Works by Year of First Appearance, With Date of First English Translation xi
5. Abbreviations of Kafka’s Works xv
6. Introduction: Kafka Begins 1
7. Critical Editions I: The 1994 Paperback Edition 21
8. Critical Editions II: Will the Real Franz Kafka Please Stand Up? 27
9. Beyond Self-Assertion: A Life of Reading Kafka 33
10. Kafka before Kafka: The Early Stories 61
11. Tradition and Betrayal in “Das Urteil” 85
12. Kafka as Anti-Christian: “Das Urteil,” “Die Verwandlung,” and the Aphorisms 101
13. Kafka’s Aesthetics: A Primer: From the Fragments to the Novels 123
14. Medial Allusions at the Outset of Der Proceß; or, res in media 149
15. Kafka’s Circus Turns: “Auf der Galerie” and “Erstes Leid” 171
16. Kafka and Postcolonial Critique: Der Verschollene, “In der Strafkolonie,” “Beim Bau der chinesischen Mauer” 187
17. Disjunctive Signs: Semiotics, Aesthetics, and Failed Mediation in “In der Strafkolonie” 213
18. Hunting Kafka Out of Season: Enigmatics in the Short Fictions 247
19. A Dream of Jewishness Denied: Kafka’s Tumor and “Ein Landarzt” 263
20. Surveying The Castle: Kafka’s Colonial Visions 281
21. Making Everything “a little uncanny”: Kafka’s Deletions in the Manuscript of Das Schloß and What They Can Tell Us About His Writing Process 325
22. Kafka Imagines His Readers: The Rhetoric of “Josefine die Sängerin” and “Der Bau” 347
23. Notes on the Contributors 361
24. Index 365