Franz Kafka and Prague: Reiner Stach illuminates literary modernity
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Franz Kafka and Prague: A Literary Quest with Reiner Stach
Prague around 1900 appears in this online lecture not as a nostalgic k.u.k. reserve, but as a city in nervous change. On Thursday, November 19, 2026, Kafka biographer Dr. Reiner Stach illuminates the political tensions, technological upheavals, and cultural contradictions that shaped Franz Kafka's perception of his hometown.
A City Between Languages and Tensions
The Bohemian capital was characterized by increasingly sharp contrasts between the Czech and German populations. For the Jewish population, this resulted in a precarious social situation. The lecture contextualizes these historical conflict lines in Kafka's life and work and shows how closely his literary imagination was connected to the urban experience of Prague.
Modernity, Acceleration, and the Uncanny
Telephones, dictaphones, electrically lit streets, trams, and cinemas changed daily life within a few years. This technological acceleration created in many contemporaries a feeling of being at the end of an era. Reiner Stach focuses on Kafka's uncanny fascination with this new world and combines cultural-historical observation with literary analysis.
Reiner Stach: Kafka Research with Biographical Precision
Dr. Reiner Stach studied philosophy, literary studies, and mathematics. With his monograph Kafka's Erotic Myth, he presented a foundational study in 1987. The three-part Kafka biography, whose volumes were published between 2002 and 2014, is considered a definitive standard work of literary biography. For Kafka: The Years of Recognition, Stach received the special prize for the Heimito von Doderer Literary Prize in 2008. In 2016, his complete works were awarded the Joseph-Breitbach Prize.
A Digital Literary Experience
The event is part of the vhs.wissen live series and takes place as a free online lecture via Zoom. Access data will be sent by email after the required registration. An internet-enabled device and speakers or headphones are needed.
Conclusion
Those who want to understand Kafka not just as an author of the absurd but as a precise observer of a politically, socially, and technologically dynamic modernity will experience a solid author encounter here. Reiner Stach connects historical atmosphere, literary quality, and biographical detail knowledge for an intense look at Kafka and Prague. Participation in the digital lecture opens a focused access to a central chapter of German-language literary history.
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- Publisher: https://www.fischerverlage.de/autor/reiner-stach-1001556
