Franz Kafka, The Jewish Patient

by Sander Gilman

Overview

This is the first book about Kafka that uses the writer's medical records. Gillman explores the relation of the body to cultural myths, and brings a unique and fascinating perspective to Kafka's life and writings.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415913911
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	11/04/1995
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	340
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.71(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

Table of Contents

1 On Difference Language and Mice 2 Kafka's Body in the Mirror of His Culture 3 Males on Trial 4 Tuberculosis as a Test Case 5 Conclusion

Editorial Reviews

In this sometimes rambling psychohistory of anti-Semitism in fin-de-sicle Europe, Gillman, president-elect of the Modern Language Association, implies that internalized Jewish emasculation, as seen in Kafka, and the shattering of the new, fragile trust in the rule of law caused by the Dreyfus affair were among the antecedents of the rise of Nazism. Kafka internalized the notion, firmly implanted in the European mind, of the Jew as a sick body. Kafka's own tuberculosis even fit the theorylater tested in death-camp experimentsthat physical inferiority rendered Jews unable to resist that disease. Examined in the light of Kafka's own medical records, many of his stories, like "In the Penal Colony," reflect this idea of the Jewish body testifying to its own unworthiness. Documentation, including illustrations from popular magazines, is abundant in Gillman's work. Unfortunately, so is psychobabblewhich often recasts logical contradiction as disguised affirmation. Recommended for specialists.Alan Cooper, York Coll., CUNY

Library Journal