Franz Kafka’s Insights for the 21st Century: Reading Class with Sean Singer (via Zoom)

This 4-week course, Mondays, 6-8 PM ET via Zoom, November 4 – November 25, will be about the life and writing of Franz Kafka (1883-1924). We will read selections of his work to more fully understand Kafka’s world, his writing, his thinking, and what we can learn from his fiction for our own writing. We will focus on the most important years of his life and the culture of Prague during 1910-1915. We will examine his family, his work, psychological development, fascination with Zionism, engagement to Felice Bauer, and his illness.

Readings include: “The Judgment,” “Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk,” “Before the Law,” “The Metamorphosis,” “In the Penal Colony,” and “A Hunger Artist”

• Understanding of essential facts about Kafka’s writing life and writing

• Understanding and application of the psychological dimension of his writing to life now

• Greater appreciation for Kafka’s contribution to literature

• To gain familiarity with Franz Kafka’s daily life, language, and milieu in fin-de-siècle Prague

• Understanding the reasons his writing might feel prophetic

NB: This class will be taught on Zoom (4 Mondays, 6-8 PM ET via Zoom, November 4 – November 25) and will be capped at 15 students. Registrants will receive the Zoom link to the email address they use to register. It will arrive immediately after registration so please check your spam folder if you do not receive it. It will also be sent the day before class as a reminder. Please review the course policies page before registering for any classes. Please email misty@writerscenter.org with any questions.

All HVWC scholarship applications will be available on May 1 and will be due on May 15 for all summer/fall 2024 classes.

Sean Singer is the author of Discography (Yale University Press, 2002), winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize, selected by W.S. Merwin, and the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America; Honey & Smoke (Eyewear Publishing, 2015); and Today in the Taxi (Tupelo Press, 2022) which won the 2023 National Jewish Book award. He runs a manuscript consultation service at www.seansingerpoetry.com