On the occasion of the centennial of Kafka’s death a three-day symposium at the University of Antwerp from June 16-18, 2024 will explore new approaches to this question he asked himself in different ways throughout his life. Although his early readers such as Max Brod, Walter Benjamin, Gershom Scholem, Margarete Susman and Hannah Arendt pointed to the importance of Kafka’s Jewish background and its relevance for his writings, this focus is still largely viewed as marginal within the vast domain of Kafka scholarship. In recent decades, however, many books and articles have dealt with Kafka’s relationship to Judaism, Jewishness, Zionism, the Bible and the Talmud, Hebrew and Yiddish, Kabbalah, Hasidism and more. The Antwerp symposium will chart and reconsider the Jewish dimensions of Kafka’s life and writings in light of new findings, theoretical approaches and historical developments.

Free admission.
To register: e-mail to 
ijs@uantwerpen.be.

Program

Sunday 16 June, 2024
Hotel Mercure conference room, Quinten Matsijslei 25, 2018 Antwerp​

18.00 – 19.30: Pre-Conference Evening Lecture
Welcome: Vivian Liska
Introduction and Chair: Mark H. Gelber

Sander L. Gilman | Emory University, Atlanta (zoom)
Kafka: Reinvented for Our Time of Plague and Antisemitism​

20.00: Evening dinner (speakers only) 


Monday 17 June, 2024
University of Antwerp, Klooster van de Grauwzusters, Lange Sint-Annastraat 7, 2000 Antwerp

10.00 – 12.45
​Introduction and Chair: Arthur Cools 
| University of Antwerp

10.15 - 11.15: Eli Schonfeld | Shalem College, Jerusalem
What Remains: Kafka and the “Nothing” (“Nichts”) of Judaism

11.15 - 11.45: Coffee Break

11.45 - 12:45: Galili Shahar | Tel Aviv University
Kafka’s Closet


12.45 - 14.00: Lunch (speakers only)


14.00- 17.30
Chair: Thomas Ernst 
| University of Antwerp

14.00 - 15.00: Vivian Liska | University of Antwerp and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Kafka’s Biblical Investment in the World

15.00 - 16.00: Mark H. Gelber | Ben-Gurion University, Beer Sheva
Kafka as a Jewish Reader and Jewish Readings of his Work

16.00 - 16.30: Coffee Break

16.30 - 17.30: Birgit Erdle | Technical University, Berlin
„…establishing tradition of lost causes…“ – Siegfried Kracauer Reading Franz Kafka

19.00: Evening dinner (speakers only)


Tuesday 18 June, 2024
University of Antwerp, Klooster van de Grauwzusters, Lange Sint-Annastraat 7, 2000 Antwerp

10.00 – 13.00
Chair: Mark H. Gelber

10.00 - 11.00: Michael Levine | Rutgers University, New Brunswick
An Impossible Community: Kafka’s Jackals and Arabs

11.00 - 12.00: Rochelle Tobias | Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore
History for an A-historical People: Kafka’s Josephine

12.00 - 12.30: Coffee Break

12.30 - 13.30: Jana Vijayakumaran | Universität Duisburg-Essen
Magical Creations. Kafka’s Prose Writing and the (De-)figuration of the Golem


13.30- 14.30: Lunch (speakers only)


14.30 - 18.00
Chair: Vivian Liska

14.30 - 15.30: Ruthie Abeliovich | Tel Aviv University (zoom)
On “In Our Synagogue”

15.30 - 17.30: Ruth Kanner Theater Company: The Hebrew Notebook and other Stories by Franz Kafka
and Freddie Rokem | Tel Aviv University
Entering the Law/Theater

17.30 - 18.00: Concluding remarks