“The ghosts will not starve, but we will”: Media criticism and ghosts in Kafka’s letterwriting

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.12957/matraga.2023.75032

Keywords:

Kafka, letters, epistolography, media, communication technologies

Abstract

This paper aims to discuss the presence of communication technologies in Franz Kafka’s correspondence with Felice Bauer and Milena Jesenská, in dialogue with commentators in Kafka’s critical fortune associated with so-called German media theory authors such as Friedrich and Wolf Kittler and Gerhard Neumann. Seeking to call into question the relationship these studies make between epistolary activity, technology, and the role of the women in Kafka’s letters, this paper, which also presents selected passages extracted from the Letters to Felice and Letters to Milena in direct Brazilian Portuguese translation for the first time, claims that Kafka’s epistolary work would gain in complexity if read more closely to problems he himself presented in his “ghost letter” [Gespensterbrief], where Kafka discusses letterwriting in relation to other communication technologies.

Author Biography

Leonardo Petersen Lamha, Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF)

É mestre em Estudos Literários (UFF) e doutorando em Literatura Comparada (UFF), com estadia de pesquisa na Universidade de Viena (2023-2024) e na Freie Universität Berlin (2024). Tradutor, verteu para o português, dentre outros, Império e comunicações, de Harold Innis (Machado, no prelo) e as dez primeiras Cartas a Milena, de Franz Kafka, acompanhadas de comentário (Tradução em Revista, no prelo).

References

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capa da Matraga 60

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Published

2023-10-18

How to Cite

Lamha, L. P. (2023). “The ghosts will not starve, but we will”: Media criticism and ghosts in Kafka’s letterwriting. MATRAGA - Journal Published by the Graduate Program in Letters at Rio De Janeiro State University (UERJ), 30(60), 554–567. https://doi.org/10.12957/matraga.2023.75032

Issue

Vol. 30 No. 60 (2023): From Babel to the Global (South): Kafka's legacy on the 100th anniversary of his death

Section

Literature Papers

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