Tag Archives: Franz Kafka

Kafka Explains Barr’s Mueller Report

By Robin Bates | Published: March 26, 2019

Wednesday In Monday’s essay I suggested Kafka could help Americans negotiate the apparent bad news they are getting from Attorney General William Barr’s summation of the Mueller Report. While (according to Barr) the report did not exonerate the Trump campaign for covering up its relations with Russia when it interfered in the 2016 election, it […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged William Barr | Comments closed

Which Narrative Fits Mueller’s Report?

By Robin Bates | Published: March 24, 2019

Monday Two weeks ago I had an interesting interchange with reader Josh Grumet about which narrative would emerge once Robert Mueller submitted his report. While I said that liberals and NeverTrumpers were rooting for a Sherlock Holmes ending, I feared we would end up with a Samuel Beckett non-conclusion. Josh, meanwhile, compared Trump supporters to […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Alexander Dumas, Count of Monte Cristo, Donald Trump, Endgame, Mueller Report, Oxbow Incident, Russian Collusion, Samuel Beckett, Trial, Walter Clark, William Barr | Comments closed

Lit Comforts an ALS Sufferer

By Robin Bates | Published: June 23, 2017

This past March an ALS sufferer spoke eloquently, shortly before her death, about how she turned to Sophocles, Kafka, and Shakespeare for comfort.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged ALS, death and dying, Hamlet, Lynette Williamson, Metamorphosis, Oedipus, Sophocles, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

Why It’s Good To Offend Students

By Robin Bates | Published: September 1, 2015

An entering Duke student has refused to read Alison Bechdel’s “Fun House.” A professor comes partially to his defense.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Burning of the Books", Alison Bechdel, Bertolt Brecht, censorship, college life, freshman orientation, Fun House, homosexuality, reader response | Comments closed

Kafka’s K Would Feel at Home with FISA

By Robin Bates | Published: May 27, 2015

A “Washington Post” quiz comparing Franz Kafka’s “The Trial” with the United Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court comes up with some disturbing resemblances.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged court system, FBI, FISA Court, foreign intelligence agents, NSA, Trial, United Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court | Comments closed

The Brave New World of Twitterature

By Robin Bates | Published: May 31, 2012

Depending on your point of view, literature reduced to tweets is either comic or horrifying.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Catcher in the Rye, E. M. Forster, Gustave Flaubert, Howards End, In Search of Lost Time, J. D. Salinger, Jane Austen, John Milton, John Steinbeck, Madame Bovary, Marcel Proust, Metamorphosis, Of Mice and Men, Paradise Lost, Pride and Prejudice, Trial | Comments closed

Lit, an RX for Fanaticism?

By Robin Bates | Published: November 14, 2011

Israeli author Amos Oz believes that literature can provide “a partial and limited immunity to fanaticism.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Nose", Fanaticism, Nikolai Gogol, Trial, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

Grendel as a Norwegian Christian Fascist

By Robin Bates | Published: July 26, 2011

Apparently Anders Breivik was very well read and he mentions George Orwell, Franz Kafka, and Ayn Rand. What I find striking about them on the list is that they all articulate high levels of paranoia.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged 1984, Anders Breivik, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, George Orwell, Terrorism, Trial | Comments closed

Essay Grading and the Great Wall of China

By Robin Bates | Published: December 8, 2010

At this time of year, I sometimes wonder why I signed up for this gig. Stacks of ungraded essays are strewn “far and wee” across my study, and only the knowledge that I have completed my student essays in the past assures me that I will make it through this batch. In my hour of […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged After Apple-Picking, Great Wall of China, Robert Frost, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, teaching, William Wordsworth, Work | Comments closed