Why Kafka? Why Now?
When Kafka died in 1924 at the age of forty, he was an obscure writer whose work was known only to a few intellectuals. No one could have foretold that today he would be considered one of the most influential writers of the 20th century whose resonance extends well into the 21st.  His name, immortalized in the adjective “Kafkaesque” can be found in Time magazine as well as The New York Times and is widely used even by those who have never read a word of his writings.  His stories have been made into comic books, plays, cartoons, even for children.  His anxieties have become a mirror for our own:  among them, issues of ethnic, racial, religious, sexual, gender identities; interrogations of masculinity and body image, vegetarianism, sexuality and violence, animal avatars.

In a post-Holocaust world, these themes continue to resonate: surface normality and control over one’s fate is illusory, the workings of the world incomprehensible.  In multiple ways Kafka’s life and works encapsulate the outsider who dwells within.  In this slide-lecture- discussion, we will explore the resonances of his life and works within the complexity of our own time. 

Evelyn Torton Beck, holds Ph.D.s in both Comparative Literature and Clinical Psychology. She is Women’s Studies Professor Emerita at the University of Maryland and an Alum Research Fellow with the Creative Longevity and Wisdom Initiative at The Fielding Graduate University.  Her first book, Kafka and the Yiddish Theater: Its Impact on his Work, shed new light on the origins of themes that remained central to Kafka’s oeuvre. In the work that followed, she wrote numerous essays on the intersection of power, gender, Judaism, and homosexuality in Kafka's life and work. Dr. Beck is also the translator of stories (from Yiddish) by Isaac Bashevis Singer. Her pioneering book, Nice Jewish Girls: A Lesbian Anthology, was the first to document these doubly silenced voices. Her comparative study of Franz Kafka and Frida Kahlo, focuses on the confluence of themes and the healing power of art in their life and work.  She has also written on other women artists, such as Hungarian ceramist Margit Kovacs and Viennese born American painter Diana Kurz.  Dr. Beck has lectured widely in Europe, Japan, and across the United States. For additional information, please visit http://wmst.umd.edu/people/core-faculty/evelyn-torton-beck.

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