Transcending Slapstick - Lecture with Steve Weinberg

TRANSCENDING  SLAPSTICK

Kafka lecture with Steve Weinberg: How Kafka took the Gestures of Silent Film and made them Absurdly Humorous. “Like El Greco, Kafka tears open the sky behind every gesture...” wrote Walter Benjamin. 

The stereotypical image of Kafka as a dreary and solemn prophet is a myth which needs to be debunked. In fact, throughout Kafka’s literature, diaries, and letters, one observes the author’s gift for effervescent, silly, and innovative humor. One area which has been particularly unexplored is Kafka’s penchant for absurd humor in his masterful crafting of gesture. It is no secret that Kafka was an avid silent filmgoer, and worked diligently to capture the dramatic, exaggerated, and boisterous gestures of silent film actors in literary prose. As early as 1934, Walter Benjamin aptly compared Kafka’s artistic style with that of Charlie Chaplin. However, what has not been observed in the scholarship is how Kafka creatively exploits these physical movements in his fiction to infuse them with a strange, avant-garde, postmodern humor. This humor cannot be reduced to slapstick. Rather, Kafka crafts gestures in such a way that their multi-faceted superfluousness unleashes a humor over the motion of the body which can be said to go beyond slapstick.

Steve Weinberg, Fellow at Humboldt Unviversity and Halo School Berlin alumni, studied Kafka’s works and German literature at Beersheba University in Israel. He currently undertakes Ph.D. studies in German literature at Rutgers University in New Jersey. 


LITERATURHAUS BERLIN

Fasanen Strasse 23
Contact Tel: 0179 5800972
Event in English/ Entry free 
HALO SCHOOL EVENTS

Quo Vadis Sorb Lusatia

QUO VADIS SORB LUSATIA

Tomaš Kappa / Ralph Th. Kappler tables for the Łužiska Alianca the "Lusatia Declaration" at the EFA European Assembly in Santiago de Compostela, Spain 2014

Tomaš Kappa / Ralph Th. Kappler grew up in Sorbian Lusatia in the Rakecy municipality. Rakecy was almost entirely Germanized during the Century of German dictatorships. Although Lusatia is a culturally vibrant and resource rich region, the Sorbian civilization is under threat from excessive brown coal mining. Tomaš founded in London the Halo Energy communications network. Halo Energy organized in 2014 independent Sorb lobbying in the European Parliament (Lusatia Declaration at the EFA Assembly) and in the EU Commission in Brussels. In 2002 Halo organized a Sorbian press conference at the Foreign Press Association London and a reception for Sorbian Domowina representatives at Buckingham Palace. Halo introduced renewable projects to the Lusatia coal mining region before anyone else. Ralph Kappler previously directed at GCI London the European communications for British Airways. He provided communications support to EU officials in Brussels. 

Tomaš Kappa / Ralph Th. Kappler wuchs in Rakecy in der sorbischen Lausitz auf. Rakecy, heute Königswartha nordöstlich von Dresden, wurde im Jahrhundert Deutscher Diktaturen fast vollständig germanisiert. Nur wenige Sorbisch Sprechende und Ortsschilder erinnern noch an den slawischen Ursprung des Sorbenlandes.

The EFA - European Parliament Assembly adopted 2014 the Lusatia Declaration

HALO organized Sorb Lusatian Reception at Buckingham Palace, London, May 2002

HALO organized Sorbian Lusatia Press Conference, Foreign Press Association, London, May 2002/ Nadine Allal (Halo), Jan Nuk (Domowina Chairman), Prof. Peter Barker, Tomaš Kappa / Ralph Kappler (Halo)

Sorb Lusatia press conference, Forgeign Press Association London, May 2002 

Tomaš Kappa / Ralph Th. Kappler, ARD Tagesschau Interview on Sorb Lusatia, London, May 2002

LUSATIAN SONGS - Lusatia Rakecy 

Rjana Łužica, Sorbian, Hebrew and other songs

Tomaš Kappa / Ralph Thomas Kappler

Source: www.halo-energy.com