A Night In the Arms of Kafka

Join us preshow as Dr Russell Smith will take you on an exploration of the life and works of Franz Kafka who put his stamp on 20th century literature through novels and novellas that embraced themes of alienation, existential anxiety, guilt, and absurdity, and from whom the term Kafkaesque originated, inspired by his nightmarishly complex and bizarre yet absurd and impersonal short stories.

Russell Smith lectures in Modernist Literature and Literary Theory at the ANU. He has published widely on modernist literature and visual art, especially the work of Samuel Beckett. In September 2018 he organised an international conference at the National Film and Sound Archive to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the publication of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Way back in the day he wrote his Honours thesis on Kafka, and continues to teach Kafka stories in undergraduate and Honours courses at ANU.