Kafka and Noise: The Discovery of Cinematic Sound in Literary Modernism (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780810138933)

A series of disruptive, unnerving sounds haunts the fictional writings of Franz Kafka. These include the painful squeak in Gregor Samsa's voice, the indeterminate whistling of Josefine the singer, the relentless noise in "The Burrow," and telephonic disturbances in The Castle. In Kafka and Noise, Kata Gellen applies concepts and vocabulary from film theory to Kafka's works in order to account for these unsettling sounds. Rather than try to decode these noises, Gellen explores the complex role they play in Kafka's larger project.

Kafka and Noise offers a method for pursuing intermedial research in the humanities--namely, via the productive "misapplication" of theoretical tools, which exposes the contours, conditions, and expressive possibilities of the media in question. This book will be of interest to scholars of modernism, literature, cinema, and sound, as well as to anyone wishing to explore how artistic and technological media shape our experience of the world and the possibilities for representing it.


Author: Kata Gellen
ISBN-10: 081013893X
ISBN-13: 9780810138933
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
Language: English
Published: 01/15/2019
Pages: 264
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.80lbs
Size: 8.90h x 6.00w x 0.70d