German-Jewish literature and thought
Yiddish literature
Hebrew literature
Current Projects
Kafkaʼs Poems – This combination of the authorʼs name with this genre may surprise, since, hearing the name Franz Kafka, one thinks rather of three great, if also fragmented novels – Amerika, The Castle and The Trial –, as well as of some longer and some shorter stories. For this stubbornly persisting focus, Max Brodʼs editing practice alone cannot be held responsible. That the research on Kafka – which is not quite thin on the ground – leaps to the same texts again and again (whose potential of interpretation certainly does not exhaust itself) is not justifiable anymore, at least not since an international team of researchers edited and published the complete critical Kafka edition at Fischer publishing house between 1982 and 2004. Ever since, research on Kafka has occasionally shown interest in lesser known genres within Kafkaʼs oeuvre, such as in the “Zürauer Zettel” – Kafkaʼs collection of aphorisms –, or in reflections, which circle around Judaism, but at least three areas of his writing remain largely unstudied to this day: The recently edited volume “Franz Kafka – The Drawings” (Andreas Kilcher, C. H. Beck München 2021) comprises two hundred drawings by Kafka and portrays Kafka as a draftsman. My dissertation “Narrowest Stages. Destroyed Presents – Franz Kafka Between Epic and Drama” (forthcoming 2024) portrays Kafka as a dramatist, and lastly this project aims to portray Kafka as a poet. Kafka, the cartoonist; Kafka, the dramatist; Kafka, the poet; all these combinations of author name and genre sound strange to our ears, though all of them are reasonable...
Curriculum Vitae
Fellowships and Grants (selection):
Nishmat Educators Fellowship (06/23-07/23);
Junior Library Fellow, Van Leer Institute, Jerusalem (10/22-10/23);
Franz Rosenzweig Minerva Post-Doc-Fellowship, Hebrew University (10/22-07/23);
Minerva Foundation Ph.D.-Fellowship, Tel Aviv University (08/20-08/22);
Ulpan Scholarship of the World Union of Jewish Studies, Hebrew University (08/20-10/20);
Excellence Fellowship, Rutgers University (12/15-05/16)
Education:
Rosenzweig Minerva Post-Doc-Fellow, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, invited by Prof. Benjamin Pollock (10/22-07/23);
Ph.D.-Fellow of the Minerva Foundation at the Department of Comparative Literature, Tel Aviv University, invited by Professor Galili Shahar (08/20-10/22);
Doctoral Candidate (research position, Comparative Literature) at the International Doctoral Program MIMESIS (Elite Network of Bavaria), LMU Munich, advisors: Prof. Inka Mülder-Bach und Prof. Judith Kasper (04/17-08/20);
Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies at Columbia University, New York, invited by Professor Jeremy Dauber (09/18-06/19);
Excellence Fellow at the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, Rutgers University (including training as GFL teacher), invited by Chair-Professor Michael G. Levine, and at the Department of Comparative Literature, NYU within the scope of the Inter University Doctoral Consortium: seminar The Pains of Language taught by Werner Hamacher (12/15-05/16);
Magistra Artium, Comparative Literature, Philosophy and Newer German Literature, LMU Munich, Magister thesis: The True in the Wrong. Towards an Actualization of Adornoʼs Conception of Aesthetic Experience, advisors: Professor Sven Hanuschek and Professor Martin von Koppenfels (07/15);
Beginning of the studies in Comparative Literature, Philosophy and Newer German literature at LMU Munich (04/0
Publications
Books:
Narrowest Stages. Destroyed Presents – Franz Kafka Between Epic and Drama (forthcoming 2024)
Edited books:
Kafkaʼs Poems (anthology, planned);
Together with Prof. Paul North (Yale University): Kafkaʼs Plays. An Anthology of Franz Kafkaʼs Dramatic Writings (anthology, planned).
Articles:
“Chiffrierte Schriften. Klees écriture, Kafkas Gekritzel”. In: Rajabi, Katharina/Simon, Katharina: Bilder sichtbar machen. Kadmos Berlin (forthcoming 2023).
Peer-reviewed articles:
“Kafka’s Zionist Poems?”. In: Pollock, Benjamin/Weidner, Daniel/ Wiese Christian: Naharaim. Journal of German-Jewish Literature and Cultural History. De Gruyter (forthcoming 2024);
“Kafkas Bühnen – Zwischen Käfig und Naturtheater”. In: Fuchs, David/Heimböckel, Dieter/Nonoa Koku: Kafkas Theater. In: Müller-Schöll, Nikolaus/Siegmund, Gerald: Critical Theatre Studies. WBG (forthcoming 2023);
“Occupiability. On Paul Celanʼs Radicalization of Walter Benjaminʼs Philosophy of Translation”. Translated by Aida Feng. In: Mendicino, Kristina/Zechner, Dominik: Frontiers, Encounters: Celan and Philosophy. SUNY Press New York 2023;
“Kafka’s »Assistants« – The Castle In-Between World- and Yiddish Theater”. In: Bar-Izhak, Chen/Eshel, Amir/Shahar, Galili/Shemtov, Vered: Comparing the Literatures. In: Dibur Literary Journal. Arcade Stanford February 2023, 73 – 93;
“Engste Bühne. Zerstörte Gegenwart. Der Gruft-Wächter – ein episches Drama”. In: Kling, Alexander/Lehmann, Johannes F.: Kafkas Zeiten. In: Forschungen der Deutschen Kafka-Gesellschaft, Band 7, 2022. Königshausen & Neumann Würzburg 2.
Presentations (selection):
Kafka’s Zionist Poems?” (Franz Rosenzweig Minerva Research Center at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, May 2023);
Kafkas Bühnen – Zwischen Käfig und Naturtheater” (Kafkas Theater, organized by David Fuchs, Dieter Heimböckel and Koku Nonoa, University of Luxembourg, December 2021);
Engste Bühne. Zerstörte Gegenwart. Der Gruft-Wächter – ein episches Drama” (Kafkas Zeiten, Annual Convention of the German Kafka-Society, organized by Alexander Kling and Johannes Lehmann. University of Bonn, September 2021);
Occupiability. On Paul Celanʼs Radicalization of Walter Benjamin‘s Philosophy of Translation” (GSA Seminar: Frontiers, Encounters: Celan and Philosophy, organized by Kristina Mendicino and Dominik Zechner, Pittsburgh, September 2018);
Chiffrierte Schriften. Klees écriture, Kafkas Gekritzel” (Bilder Sichtbar Machen, organized by Katharina Rajabi and Katharina Simon, LMU Munich, Mai 2017).