Kafkaesque Cinema

For all its familiarity as a widely used term, "Kafkaesque cinema" remains an often-baffling concept. Taking a cue from Jorge Luis Borges' point that Kafka has modified our conception of past and future artists, and André Bazin's suggestion that literary concepts and styles can exceed authors and "novels from which they emanate", this book proposes a comprehensive examination of Kafkaesque cinema in order to understand it as part of a transnational cinematic tradition rooted in Kafka's critique of modernity, which extends beyond the Kafka's work and his historical experiences. Drawing on a range of disciplines in the humanities including film, literary, and theatre studies, critical theory, and history, the book'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. This is the first full-length study of the subject and will be a useful resource for scholars and students interested in film theory, world cinema, world literature, and politics and representation. Angelos Koutsourakis is an Associate Professor in Film and Cultural Studies at the Centre for World Cinemas and Digital Cultures, University of Leeds.