After an introduction to the central issues of globalization as well as globalization as a theoretical concept in the first two weeks, this course explores how writings by Franz Kafka and his successors help us to understand global phenomena from the emergence of hybrid identities to the blurring of geopolitical boundaries. Films like District 9 (that tells the story of humans transforming into disgusting, Metamorphosislike creature) and Avatar (in which Kafkaesque hybrid identities are formed) offer the most recent evidence that Franz Kafka and his strange imagination have becmoe a global phenomenon. Cultural critics, political theorists, as well as sociologists have analyzed the cultural and political effects of modernization and globalism through Kafka’s stories. Kafka is among the very few authors whose works shape the ways we perceive the cultural and political transofrmations of the 20th and 21st century. Through their readings of Kafka, contemporary theorists from Arendt to Deleuze and Agamben formulated theories of modernization, totalitarianism, and globalization. This course explores Kafka’s view of the modern world and in particular his visions of China, Russia, and America. Further, this course analyzes recent literary rewritings of Kafka in Latin America (Gabriel Garcia Marquez), Africa (J.B. Coetzee), and Japan (Haruki Murakami).
The course is taught in English.
Prof. Kai Evers | kevers@uci.edu
Fall 2010: Global Cultures 103A | German 150 | German 150W