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
18.00 – 19.30: Pre-Conference Online 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: Opening Lecture: 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