Kafka, Narrative and the Law

What is it about?

References to the law pervade Kafka’s writings, but their meaning remains elusive. It is precisely because it is uncertain whether the law in Kafka’s work is to be understood in juridical, religious, literary, or more generally ontological terms that it has elicited numerous and often contradictory interpretations that shed light on the relationship between these different realms. The lecture will explore how this indeterminacy and its effects have inspired important debates between modernist thinkers from Scholem and Benjamin to Jacques Derrida and Giorgio Agamben. The talk will focus on the relationship between law and narrative and its correlation with Jewish approaches to the interaction between Halacha and Aggadah.

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Why is it important?

It points out the mistake often made in today's political/religious theories of identifying Jewish law with oppressive state law and reveals certain supersessionist tendencies in philosophical views of Judaism in the present.

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