The Kafkaesque in World Cinema
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Leeds
Department Name: Sch of Languages, Cultures and Societies
Abstract
This project will be the first major investigation of the Kafkaesque in World Cinema. The commonsensical definition of Kafkaesque cinema simply reduces the term to films which are "direct adaptations or films inspired by Kafka" (Biderman, Lewit 2016: 16); other scholars suggest that the term refers to films whose aesthetic ambiguity creates interpretative puzzles and "mind games" (Elsaesser 2009: 31). So far, literature scholars have mainly focused on film adaptations of the author's works, while film/media scholarship tends to equate the term with an apolitical aesthetics of mood.
Against this critical tendency, this project intends to establish an original critical methodology through the concept of the Kafkaesque examining how modernist filmmakers from different nations draw on the Kafkaesque tradition of aesthetic ambivalence to respond to the historical contradictions of modernity and late modernity. Departing from the dominant tendency to examine Kafkaesque cinema as an aesthetic of mood voided of any political content, this project examines the transnational aspect of the Kafkaesque aesthetic with the view to revealing its interconnection with historically specific experiences and persistent political contradictions. Analyses of case studies from Australia, Argentina, Belgium, Chile, China, Cuba, the former Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, USA, and the former USSR will deliver a crucial re-evaluation of the Kafkaesque as a critical category in film studies and will illuminate its political implications.
The project has three key research questions:
1. What is Kafkaesque cinema and how can we understand it beyond the screen adaptation of Kafka's texts?
2. Why does the Kafkaesque aesthetic cross geographical boundaries and why is it manifest in different cultures across the globe?
3. What is the correlation between politics and aesthetics in Kafkaesque cinema (questions related to the dialectics between development and underdevelopment, fascism, Stalinism, and key contradictions of modernity and late modernity)?
The project seeks to further our understanding of Kafkaesque cinema and reveal how it can be understood as a response to historical anxieties that modernity and our contemporary late modernity never managed to resolve. This is an especially timely issue given the recent transnational turn in modernist studies and the study of modernism as a global phenomenon that responds to conditions of combined and uneven development.
My fellowship is divided into two phases. Taking an approach informed by writings on Kafka by key critical theorists/philosophers, such as Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Alexander Kluge, Siegfried Kracauer, and Gilles Deleuze, in phase one, I offer theoretical conceptualisations of the Kafkaesque. During this phase of the project, my focus will be on the completion of two research articles, the organisation of two public engagement activities (one with Leeds Opera North, and one with Leeds International Film Festival) and the presentation of my research in Cambridge, where I will be a visiting scholar for 2 months. In phase two, I aim to delimit the case studies to be discussed and answer the question how Kafkaesque cinema responds to key contradictions of modernity. This phase of the project will result in another research article and a book proposal; I will also take up a visiting fellowship (1 month) at the University of Bergen and will organise a series of screenings and talks at the BFI.
The fellowship will enable me to develop my leadership in the field of World Cinema and commence work in a new area of research. The interdisciplinary quality of the project and the scheduled leadership and impact activities will raise my profile beyond the discipline of film studies and will enable me to shape research agendas and foster wider research impact.
Against this critical tendency, this project intends to establish an original critical methodology through the concept of the Kafkaesque examining how modernist filmmakers from different nations draw on the Kafkaesque tradition of aesthetic ambivalence to respond to the historical contradictions of modernity and late modernity. Departing from the dominant tendency to examine Kafkaesque cinema as an aesthetic of mood voided of any political content, this project examines the transnational aspect of the Kafkaesque aesthetic with the view to revealing its interconnection with historically specific experiences and persistent political contradictions. Analyses of case studies from Australia, Argentina, Belgium, Chile, China, Cuba, the former Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, USA, and the former USSR will deliver a crucial re-evaluation of the Kafkaesque as a critical category in film studies and will illuminate its political implications.
The project has three key research questions:
1. What is Kafkaesque cinema and how can we understand it beyond the screen adaptation of Kafka's texts?
2. Why does the Kafkaesque aesthetic cross geographical boundaries and why is it manifest in different cultures across the globe?
3. What is the correlation between politics and aesthetics in Kafkaesque cinema (questions related to the dialectics between development and underdevelopment, fascism, Stalinism, and key contradictions of modernity and late modernity)?
The project seeks to further our understanding of Kafkaesque cinema and reveal how it can be understood as a response to historical anxieties that modernity and our contemporary late modernity never managed to resolve. This is an especially timely issue given the recent transnational turn in modernist studies and the study of modernism as a global phenomenon that responds to conditions of combined and uneven development.
My fellowship is divided into two phases. Taking an approach informed by writings on Kafka by key critical theorists/philosophers, such as Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Alexander Kluge, Siegfried Kracauer, and Gilles Deleuze, in phase one, I offer theoretical conceptualisations of the Kafkaesque. During this phase of the project, my focus will be on the completion of two research articles, the organisation of two public engagement activities (one with Leeds Opera North, and one with Leeds International Film Festival) and the presentation of my research in Cambridge, where I will be a visiting scholar for 2 months. In phase two, I aim to delimit the case studies to be discussed and answer the question how Kafkaesque cinema responds to key contradictions of modernity. This phase of the project will result in another research article and a book proposal; I will also take up a visiting fellowship (1 month) at the University of Bergen and will organise a series of screenings and talks at the BFI.
The fellowship will enable me to develop my leadership in the field of World Cinema and commence work in a new area of research. The interdisciplinary quality of the project and the scheduled leadership and impact activities will raise my profile beyond the discipline of film studies and will enable me to shape research agendas and foster wider research impact.
Planned Impact
Given that Kafka is one of the most widely read-authors in the world, the project's emphasis on the Kafkaesque will resonate with people outside academia.
The project's impact derives through three community-engagement activities in collaboration with 1) Leeds Opera North, 2) Leeds International Film festival and 3) British Film Institute (see pathways section).
The first two activities take place during phase one of the project and the last one during the second phase. Furthermore, it is expected that dissemination of short jargon-free articles through public media outlets will maximise the project's impact.
Several non-academic institutions and groups are expected to benefit from the project's activities:
1) Leeds Opera North will benefit from the one-day screening and the post-screening roundtable discussion with the Booker prize winner author and scriptwriter László Krasznahorkai, and Professor András Bálint Kovács (Eötvös Loránd University), who will be invited by the PI. Krasznahorkai and Kovács will lead a discussion on the Kafkaesque in Central European cinema and literature with the PI and the audience.
2) The Leeds International Film Festival will benefit from the special screenings (to be curated by the PI) and discussions dedicated to the Kafkaesque in cinemas outside Europe. The presence of academics and their participation in round-table discussions will also benefit the festival. Furthermore, film and festival programmers and DVD distributors, who attend the festival, will benefit from the planned event, which has the potential to lead to further collaborations between academics and the industry.
3) The British Film Institute will benefit from the screenings, accompanying talks and introductions to Kafkaesque cinema to be organised by the PI, who will curate a series of films from Central and Eastern Europe. The BFI will also benefit from the presence of academics who will participate in the talks/introductions. Members of the Goethe Institute, the Hungarian Cultural Centre, and the Czech Centre London will be invited to this event and will benefit from the opportunity to liaise with scholars whose expertise they can draw on. They will be able to work towards further future collaborations with the invited academics.
4) Members of the public who will attend the project events and read the disseminated essays in the public media outlets will benefit from a better understanding of Kafka's legacy in World Cinema and the connection between the Kafkaesque cinematic aesthetic and historical tensions in modernity and late modernity. Members of the Leeds Social justice network, who campaign to involve communities in cultural events in accessible formats, will be invited to the first two public-facing activities and will be encouraged to actively participate in the discussions around the topic of totalitarianism and Kafkaesque cinema. They will benefit from the special programmes in Leeds Opera North and Leeds International Film Festival and will have the opportunity to build networks for further collaboration with the PI and the other academics involved in the public discussions.
The project's impact derives through three community-engagement activities in collaboration with 1) Leeds Opera North, 2) Leeds International Film festival and 3) British Film Institute (see pathways section).
The first two activities take place during phase one of the project and the last one during the second phase. Furthermore, it is expected that dissemination of short jargon-free articles through public media outlets will maximise the project's impact.
Several non-academic institutions and groups are expected to benefit from the project's activities:
1) Leeds Opera North will benefit from the one-day screening and the post-screening roundtable discussion with the Booker prize winner author and scriptwriter László Krasznahorkai, and Professor András Bálint Kovács (Eötvös Loránd University), who will be invited by the PI. Krasznahorkai and Kovács will lead a discussion on the Kafkaesque in Central European cinema and literature with the PI and the audience.
2) The Leeds International Film Festival will benefit from the special screenings (to be curated by the PI) and discussions dedicated to the Kafkaesque in cinemas outside Europe. The presence of academics and their participation in round-table discussions will also benefit the festival. Furthermore, film and festival programmers and DVD distributors, who attend the festival, will benefit from the planned event, which has the potential to lead to further collaborations between academics and the industry.
3) The British Film Institute will benefit from the screenings, accompanying talks and introductions to Kafkaesque cinema to be organised by the PI, who will curate a series of films from Central and Eastern Europe. The BFI will also benefit from the presence of academics who will participate in the talks/introductions. Members of the Goethe Institute, the Hungarian Cultural Centre, and the Czech Centre London will be invited to this event and will benefit from the opportunity to liaise with scholars whose expertise they can draw on. They will be able to work towards further future collaborations with the invited academics.
4) Members of the public who will attend the project events and read the disseminated essays in the public media outlets will benefit from a better understanding of Kafka's legacy in World Cinema and the connection between the Kafkaesque cinematic aesthetic and historical tensions in modernity and late modernity. Members of the Leeds Social justice network, who campaign to involve communities in cultural events in accessible formats, will be invited to the first two public-facing activities and will be encouraged to actively participate in the discussions around the topic of totalitarianism and Kafkaesque cinema. They will benefit from the special programmes in Leeds Opera North and Leeds International Film Festival and will have the opportunity to build networks for further collaboration with the PI and the other academics involved in the public discussions.
People |
ORCID iD |
Angelos Koutsourakis (Principal Investigator / Fellow) |
Publications
Koutsourakis A
(2020)
The Politics of Humour in Kafkaesque Cinema: A World-Systems Approach
in Film-Philosophy
Koutsourakis, A
(2023)
Kafkaesque cinema in the context of post-fascism'
in Modernism/Modernity
Koutsourakis, A
(2022)
Koutsourakis, A. 'Cinema and Surveillance Capitalism: Consumer Behaviourism and Labour Alienation in Paranoia 1.0 (2004) and The Circle (2017)'
in Quarterly Review of Film and Video
Koutsourakis A
(2022)
Cinema and Surveillance Capitalism: Consumer Behaviorism and Labor Alienation in Paranoia 1.0 (2004) and The Circle (2017)
in Quarterly Review of Film and Video
Koutsourakis, A
(2022)
'Reenactment and Critical History,'
in Screening the Past: A Peer-Reviewed Journal of Screen History, Theory & Criticism
Koutsourakis Angelos
(2024)
Kafkaesque Cinema
Description | This project has been arguing that to understand the concept of the Kafkaesque cinema we need to think of the Kafkaesque as something that goes beyond Kafka's work, the film adaptation of his texts, and his historical experiences. The project's central methodological claim is that Kafkaesque Cinema responds formally and thematically to the crisis of liberalism as experienced from the late nineteenth century to the present. Informed by world-systems theory - a multidisciplinary approach to world history and social change which highlights the importance of the world-system (instead of the nation state) in the study of global history - I show how Kafkaesque Cinema emerges in advanced capitalist, fascist, and Stalinist states, as well as in places structurally underdeveloped by capitalist modernity. Thus, the project seeks to expand the historical parameters of the Kafkaesque and to understand it as a critical category that responds to the crisis of liberalism in its longue durée. The term longue durée is associated with the French historian Fernand Braudel, who recommends a historical methodology that is not restricted to the study of isolated historical episodes; instead, he asks us to consider the wider structures that permeate different periods in history (2009). My approach considers the crisis of liberalism as a Braudelian structure that allows us to understand the concept of Kafkaesque Cinema historically. In doing so, the project shifts emphasis from Kafka to the Kafkaesque and discusses films that deploy Kafka's critique of modernity to respond to historical contradictions deriving from the long crisis of liberalism. |
Exploitation Route | Having already finalised (and exceeded) the three research outcomes promised to the AHRC, I have recently completed a monograph based on the project. I am also in the early stages of thinking about a new project on the idea of the cinematic grotesque that could lead to a future funding application. |
Sectors | Creative Economy Culture Heritage Museums and Collections Other |
URL | https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-kafkaesque-cinema.html |
Description | Segments of my research were reprinted in the Leeds 2021 International Film Festival Catalogue. |
First Year Of Impact | 2021 |
Impact Types | Cultural Societal |
Description | Kafkaesque Cinema |
Amount | € 27,000 (EUR) |
Organisation | Alexander von Humboldt Foundation |
Sector | Public |
Country | Germany |
Start | 11/2022 |
End | 07/2023 |
Description | Collaboration with Cinepoetics - Center for Advanced Film Studies, Freie Universität Berlin |
Organisation | Free University of Berlin |
Country | Germany |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | As part of my leadership activities, I was meant to initiate collaborations with other Institutions. These collaborations were postponed due to Covid. Eventually, I agreed with h Cinepoetics - Center for Advanced Film Studies, Freie Universität Berlin (one of the most advanced Centres on Film Studies in Europe), to be a visiting fellow there, present my research, and engage in other collaborative activities, (reading groups, workshops, public talks). This was further developed after managing to get further funding for the project - Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship for experienced researchers. This collaboration will outlive the project and we will join forces to apply for a European Research Council grant. |
Collaborator Contribution | I delivered research papers, participated in workshops, and reading groups as well as in public talks. |
Impact | Outputs include: participation in research seminars (presentations on the Kafkaesque), reading groups on the Anthropocene and workshops. A new project provisionally titled Third Cinemas in light of the Anthropocene has emerged out of a reading group on the Anthropocene. |
Start Year | 2022 |
Description | Leeds International Film Festival |
Organisation | Leeds Film |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Public |
PI Contribution | (in progress). I will be screening films that I examine in my project and contributing to a series of post-screening discussions at the next Leeds International Film Festival (November 2021). |
Collaborator Contribution | 1. Curating films 2. Contributing to discussions. 3. Contributing to festival notes. |
Impact | This collaboration is still in progress, but the key outcomes are some community engagement events (in November 2021) as part of the Leeds International Film Festival as well as some other collaborations as part of the LIFF presents series of events. |
Start Year | 2021 |
Description | Screening and Q&A with Natalia Sinelnikova after screening of her film We Might as Well be Dead (2022), Leeds International Film Festival |
Organisation | Leeds Film |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Public |
PI Contribution | In November 11, 2022, I co-organised with Leeds International Film Festival, a screening of Natalia Sinelnikova's film We Might as Well be Dead, following by Q&A (led by me) with the director. The screening was very well attended (estimated number 70 tickets) and there was a rich discussion on the Kafkaesque and contemporary political cinema. |
Collaborator Contribution | The partners booked the room and invited the filmmaker. We also contributed an amount to cover the costs of her visit and the screening. |
Impact | The key output is that I have built a relationship with Leeds International Film Festival following our 2021 collaboration (when I curated 5 Kafkaesque films, led Q&As and contributed to the catalogue). |
Start Year | 2022 |
Description | "Politicising our Understanding of Kafkaesque Cinema." |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | I was invited by the Cinepoetics - Center for Advanced Film Studies, Freie Universität Berlin to present a paper on my research on the Kafkaesque. Number of attendees: 25. Date: January 25, 2023. The audience consisted of local (German) and international scholars who are affiliated with the Centre as guests. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
Description | "The Minor and the Kafkaesque." December 13, 2021. |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Other audiences |
Results and Impact | I was invited by the Institute of Philosophy and Technology, Athens/Greece to deliver a paper based on my AHRC project. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
URL | https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/9252030/upcoming-talk-anglelos-koutsourakis-mino... |
Description | 'Christian Petzold's Transit (2018) in the context of post-fascism.' Journeys: Memory and Migration. Association of Adaptation Studies (Virtual) Conference. 8-11 June 2021. |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Other audiences |
Results and Impact | This was a conference presentation as part of the annual Adaptation Studies conference. The abstract pf the paper is pasted below: This paper discusses Christian Petzold's homonymous adaptation of Anna Seghers' Transit in the context of post-fascism. The source-text of the Jewish, Communist, anti-fascist author engages with questions of forced migration of European refugees in Marseille trying to flee fascism and hoping to find a sanctuary in North and South America. Petzold's adaptation makes use of anachronism putting the 1944 characters in a setting of contemporary Marseille. He has justified this choice explaining that the film seeks to identify the parallels between the past, the current rising neo-fascism, and the refugee crisis in Europe. Indeed, scholars have recognized the film's references to the refugee crisis, but nobody has paid attention to the issue of the rising fascism mentioned by the filmmaker. In this paper, I read the film under the rubric of post-fascism so as to rethink its political implications as well as the relevance of the source text in the present. Important interlocutors are the Hungarian philosopher Gáspár Miklós Tamás and the Italian historian Enzo Traverso, who understand post-fascism as a historical condition that permeates even mainstream politics and perpetuates fascism's hostility to the Enlightenment. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
URL | https://aasconference2021.com/event/adaptation-documentary-and-biopic/ |
Description | Community engagement/Leeds International Film Festival |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Supporters |
Results and Impact | I curated a Kafkaesque cinema section, contributed to the catalogue of the festival, and engaged with the community after the screenings. Some links here: http://www.leedsfilm.com/whats-on/the-parallel-street/ https://www.leedsfilm.com/whats-on/xala-on-35mm/ https://www.leedsfilm.com/whats-on/the-witness/ https://www.leedsfilm.com/whats-on/the-shop-on-the-main-street/ https://www.leedsfilm.com/whats-on/invasi%c3%b3n/ |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
Description | Invited talk University of Oxford |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Other audiences |
Results and Impact | I was invited to contribute a paper as part of the University's Global Kafka workshop: Title of paper: "Kafkaesque Cinema Beyond Kafka." May 6, 2022. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://www.kafka-research.ox.ac.uk/2022/05/07/kafka-workshop-2/ |
Description | Invited talk, "Kafkaesque Cinema in the Context of Post-fascism, |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | I was invited by Monash University/Malaysia to present parts of my AHRC project. Date: July 8, 2021. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
URL | https://www.monash.edu.my/sass/research/research-seminar-series/2021 |
Description | Invited talk, University of Bergen, Norway |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Other audiences |
Results and Impact | I was invited by the The Department of Information Science and Media Studies, at the University of Bergen to give a paper based on my AHRC project. Kafkaesque Cinema and the Crisis of Liberalism." May 9, 2022. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
Description | Screening of Natalia Sinelnikova's We might as well be dead (2022), at Leeds Film Festival, followed by Q&A with the director |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | I curated Natalia Sinelnikova's We might as well be dead (2022) and led a Q&A with the director. The film was screened as part of the Leeds International Film Festival, 2022. This was a well-attended screening (65-70 people) and the public engaged with questions on the Kafkaesque and contemporary political cinema. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://www.leedsfilm.com/archive/we-might-as-well-be-dead/ |
Description | The Minor and the Kafkaesque'. Society for Cinema and Media Studies Virtual Conference 2021. March 17-21. |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Other audiences |
Results and Impact | I presented a paper at the annual Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference. The Society for Cinema and Media Studies is an organization of professors and scholars. Its home office is at the University of Oklahoma, but it has members throughout the world. My paper was part of my AHRC project The Kafkaesque in World Cinema. The title of the paper was: 'The Minor and the Kafkaesque'. The abstract is pasted below: The minor and the Kafkaesque The concept of minor cinema has been applied to describe non-mainstream, experimental, feminist, queer, black, and small-nation cinemas. Although Kafka coined the descriptor 'minor literature', which was later developed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari to analyse the Bohemian author's literary output, there has been no research hitherto that reconciles the concept of minor cinema with a Kafkaesque cinematic aesthetic. This paper is part of a larger project that seeks to critically re-evaluate the Kafkaesque as a critical category in film studies. Taking a cue from André Bazin's suggestion that literary concepts and styles can exceed authors and "novels from which they emanate", and Jorge Luis Borges' point that Kafka has produced "his own precursors" and modified our conception of future artists, this paper examines the undertheorized category of Kafkaesque cinema in tandem with a minor cinematic aesthetic. I argue that the Kafkaesque is a critical term that enables us to analyse and understand films concerned with historical conditions of social oppression, alienation and the contradiction of combined and uneven development in modernity and late modernity. My aim is to challenge the critical tendency to consider Kafkaesque cinema as the synonym for an apolitical aesthetic of mood and clarify its relation with a minor cinematic aesthetic. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
URL | https://www.cmstudies.org/page/upcoming_conference |