Kafka and Illness

An in-depth exploration of the theme of transformation in Kafka's "The Metamorphosis". Why does Kafka's story still resonate today?

One of the most striking transformations of Kafka's most famous story is into an acclaimed performance for the Royal Ballet. This podcast discusses how thinking about movement in the story and the ballet offer insights into Gregor Samsa's transformation and what it is to be human. Please note, the audio version of this podcast episode contains references to visual content. To access the video version on the University of Oxford Podcasts site use the Video button, or if you're listening on Apple Podcasts please search for the video version of the series.

Award-winning comedian David Baddiel discusses the kinds of humour that operate in Kafka and how laughter and nightmare are often closer than you think

Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" has been translated into many languages and forms. This podcast explores Peter Kuper's graphic novel. Remembering Kafka's famous interdiction on illustrating the insect, we ask what is revealed when one turns Kafka's most famous story into a comic. Please note, the audio version of this podcast episode contains references to visual content. To access the video version on the University of Oxford Podcasts site use the Video button, or if you're listening on Apple Podcasts please search for the video version of the series.

The transformation that takes place in "The Metamorphosis" has been referenced in any number of recent works by writers that explore issues of race, otherness and power. This discussion asks why contemporary writers turn to Kafka to deal with a post-colonial legacy and focuses especially on French-Senegalese wrier Marie NDiyae.

Although Kafka does not treat environmental issues directly, his work has much to say about time, scale, uncertainty, inside and out and ecology in a broader sense, along our own position in a fragile world.

Using Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" as a starting point, this memoir of MS examines a range of lives and works to think through how illness challenges identity and how literature can help find a way through.

Dubbed "the Brazilian Kafka", the writer Clarice Lispector wrote an experimental text that seems to echo the "Metamorphosis" in a number of ways. This podcast explores the links between Kafka's story and this radical, exploratory, feminine version and what it tells us also about Kafka's original.

Nobel-prize winning author J. M. Coetzee has continued to reflect on and respond to Kafka in different ways throughout his life and work. This podcast teases out the similarities and explores Coetzee's treatment of animals, time and his narrative of diminution.

The figure of the sister, Greta Samsa, in Kafka's story "The Metamorphosis" has fascinated writers and thinkers since the story was written. This podcast focuses on Czech literature to see how the sister has taken on a life of her own after Kafka, raising issues of feminism, politics and the fall of Communism.