Representing Reality: The Literature of Kleist and Kafka

Representing Reality: The Literature of Kleist and Kafka is a Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies class taught by Alicia Ellis.

Course Description
This course will focus exclusively on Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811) and Franz Kafka (1883-1924) as representatives of a new critical idiom that emerged in the German language literature at the turn of each of their centuries. Possible themes for exploration are law and order, dreams, memory and consciousness, the social world as hierarchical and stratified, the search for truth and knowledge, epistemic dread, and the absurd and the marvelous. We will pay close attention to the style of the authors' prose including generic conventions, figurative language, delineation of character and narrative ambiguity. Knowledge of German is not required. Frequent short writing assignments and class presentations will be assigned.

Learning Goals

 * Presenting
 * Reading
 * Writing