Franz Kafka

Since we're starting Franz Kafka some time this semester, I thought I'd put up some background info about him. Most of this information came from a bunch of different sources including Wiki and kafka-franz.com/kafka-Biography.htm


Franz Kafka was born July 3, 1883 to a upper middle class Jewish family in Prague. Both his parents worked full time at their family store and Franz and his three sisters (who were later killed at concentration camps) were raised by governesses. "Franz's relationship with his father was severely troubled as explained in the Letter to His Father in which he complained of being profoundly affected by father's authoritative and demanding character,"(wiki). We read a lot of negative depictions of fathers in Benjamin's essay on Kafka, likely from this relationship.

Franz went to a private German school growing up and then went to the Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague. He began studying chemistry but after two weeks switched to law. After graduating, he worked for insurance agencies for the rest of his life. These had flexible hours that enabled him to write but most of his work was published after his death.

The most interesting biography I found was on kafka-franz.com. According to this, Franz was a playboy and out of his mind most of his life.

"Throughout his college days and well into adulthood, Franz was definitely not living the life of a monk. He had numerous affairs and one-night stands with barmaids, waitresses, and shopgirls, not to mention his visits to the whorehouses, activities that most men in Prague at the time also indulged in. However, these relations with women were entirely sexual. They didn't mean anything to him beyond immediate sexual gratification. The most bizarre aspect of his sex life, though, was that sex was absolutely repulsive and disgusting to him. Hence, the very idea of "normal married life" with a respectable woman was too much for him. "Coitus as the punishment for the happiness of being together," he wrote in his diary, when faced with the prospect of marriage and what that would entail. He would time and again break off engagements, sometimes nearly at the last minute, in order to escape it. Franz seems to have suffered from the malady common to many at that place and time: namely, the virgin/whore complex, where every woman is either a "nice girl" or a slut, with no room in between. So a normal, adult affair with a woman he liked and respected would prove all but impossible, as Felice Bauer soon found out. Felice On the evening of August 13, 1912, Franz met Felice Bauer, born November 18, 1887 and living in Berlin, at Brod's house and soon became enamored of her?at least of the image of her he had in his mind. He began writing her long letters about everything, although mostly about himself and his feelings of inadequacy. In this first flush of love he wrote "The Judgment" on the night of 22-23 September, which he dedicated to her. He considered it his first mature work, and proudly read it to his family and friends. In November and December he wrote "The Metamorphosis." He also worked at Amerika, or Der Verschollene (The Stoker, the first chapter, appeared separately in book form in 1913); work on it continued sporadically until 1914. During this time, in September 1913 he went to a sanatorium in Riva, Italy for his health, which had never been extrordinarily good, and there met an 18-year-old Swiss girl, Gerti Wasner, whom he liked very much. He would do cute things like knock on the ceiling (their rooms were directly on top of each other) and go to the window to talk to her at night, or write fairy tales to read her over breakfast. Although this affair only lasted the ten days they were there together, it seems to have made a deep impression on him. Meanwhile the courship by letter of Felice continued. He would write her every day, sometimes even more often, frequently complaining about how bad or dirty he was, but confident that she would listen to it all. Eventually he proposed to her in 1913, and she accepted, although in the same letter Franz wrote asking her he also went on and on as to why he would be bad for her.

Although Franz proposed again to Felice in July 1917 after actually spending a week with her at Marienbad, and later taking a trip with her to Budapest, he began coughing up blood and in August was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Always fearful of marriage and sex, this spelled the end of his relationship with Felice, who had had about enough of his crap. She married another man in 1919 but kept his letters " (kafka-franz.com)

He died June 3, 1928 of TB.

Adorno and the Significance of Metaphysics Today

Here's how I put the point of Adorno's metaphysics in the conference paper I wrote earlier this term:

To live today is to live in a state of guilt (that one survives at the expense of another) or forgetfulness (which Adorno argues is based in this feeling of guilt) (M, 114). The impossibility of philosophy can be seen at this point, for reflection takes us away from the sting of the world, and thereby serves as an agent to this very forgetfulness of self, others, and world. Although Adorno doesn’t say this, what he is describing is the problem of skepticism, for skepticism presupposes a distance from the world of nature and of other humans (think of Descartes in his stove-heated room). This is one aspect of metaphysics, and it is the aspect emphasized by the philosophical tradition. The joy of metaphysical speculation elevates us above the merely existent, above those facts so beloved by positivists. Without metaphysics--even the shadow of metaphysics—there can be no conception of truth, but experience teaches us that this truth is ultimately a materialist one. The indifference of the Stoics or the smugness of the relativist Sophists are not live options for Adorno. We are left with a self-critical experience of metaphysics with only one practical postulate: acknowledge suffering, for metaphysics can no longer simply be founded upon logic or structures of thought (provided it ever was); rather, metaphysics is founded upon the material and moral injunction to acknowledge suffering, pain, and death (what Adorno calls the “zone of the carcass and the knacker”) (M, 117). Only in this way can we remain true both to the experience of life and the metaphysical tradition. In a society premised upon control of nature, Adorno’s “emphatic conception of truth” would amount to the acknowledgement of those aspects of existence which resist our efforts to control them. Metaphysics must serve as a reminder that the timeless values which were once upheld as the pinnacle of culture have been replaced by a concrete experience of suffering. Rather than adhering to an epistemological imperative (to comprehend the world as it truly is), the emphatic truth of metaphysics is prompted by a moral one (to acknowledge suffering in the face of indifference).

Heidegger, Adorno, and Nazism

An interesting controversy during the past 30 years or so has been the extent to which Martin Heidegger's thought is tied to National Socialism. The biographical facts are clear: at the behest of Nazi government authorities, Heidegger became Rektor (essentially the President) of the University of Freiburg, a post that he resigned approximately a year later. Heidegger defenders will claim that this shows he had a change of heart. Opponents such as Adorno will claim that his thought is "Fascist through and through." Well, the controversy is back, and this blog post by Margaret Soltan nicely captures the state of the debate.

How We Die Now

Interesting op/ed that relates to the claims about the changed experience of death in modernity (cf. Benjamin's "The Storyteller, Illuminations, Section X, pp. 93-94):

Thomas G. Long, "Chronicle of a Death We Can't Accept, New York Times, November 1, 2009.

More on Leskov

Good summary of life and work here:

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/leskov.htm

Since we ran out of time when class ended, I thought I'd continue class discussion and answer McCall's question.

"What is the relationship between appearance and reality within the culture industry and in the context of Adorno's essay, "On the Fetish Character of Music...?"

The mass production of music for capitalistic purposes has reduced music from it's previous state as an art form (often used in rituals) to commodities which can be bought and sold in the form of records, tapes, cds, mp3s, etc. A commodity fetish is the compulsion to buy commodities in order to satisfy a need. These needs are usually false and used as a temporary replacement for a larger need which must be met. Music as a commodity, gives the illusion or appearance of satisfying a need in that it offers a mindless escape. In reality this "escape" is not only just temporary but actually not an escape at all because it does nothing to liberate the listener from their present condition. It suspends them in a type of limbo where they are still physically immersed in their situation but not mentally present.

Additionally, music gives the appearance of allowing for a person to assert their individuality but in reality (as discussed in the Dialectic of Enlightenment) as soon as a unique quality or individual pops up "talent scouts" quickly mass produce it thus destroying their uniqueness. To answer Mike's question in class I think that this is how Adorno would discuss an individual such as Kurt Cobain or revolutionary bands such as the Beatles. Every pop boy/girl band since is in some way a replication of the Beatles style and the Beatle's uniqueness can now only be observed in a historic sense.