Through the Eyes of Franz Kafka [talk + book launch]

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Art historian Marie Rakušanová, scholar Nicholas Sawicki, and writer–translator Ross Benjamin come together for a discussion of Franz Kafka’s relationship to visual culture and the urban environment of Prague. The conversation will explore how architecture, public space, popular media, and the arts shaped Kafka’s thinking and writing, and how these visual experiences illuminate new perspectives on his work.

The evening accompanies the publication of a new English-language edition of Through the Eyes of Franz Kafka: Between Image and Language by KANT, distributed by DAP, and originally published in Czech as Očima Franze Kafky: Mezi obrazem a jazykem.

What did Franz Kafka see and do, whom did he meet, and what did he read while roaming the streets of Prague?

Through the Eyes of Franz Kafka brings the world of turn-of-the-century Czechoslovakia and its cultural milieu to life. Kafka's home city was a heterogeneous and multilingual metropolis whose visual environment shaped his everyday experiences, from local painting and sculpture to architecture, monuments, and popular visual media, including advertisements, photography, and cabaret.

Franz Kafka’s attention to modern visual culture of his era was reflected in his writings and in his interest in drawing, a practice in which he received preliminary training and which he took up in his free time during his years as a university student. This illustrated publication immerses us in Kafka’s world, offering a new understanding of his thoughts, philosophies, and inspirations.

Edited with texts by Nicholas Sawicki and Marie Rakušanová. Preface by Zuzana Jürgens. Texts by Alexander Klee, Marek Nekula, and Miroslav Halák.

Marie Rakušanová is an art historian and Head of the Department of Art History at Charles University in Prague. Her research focuses on modern art and visual culture, particularly the relationship between image and language in early 20th-century Central Europe. She is lead author and co-editor of Through the Eyes of Franz Kafka: Between Image and Language (KANT) and editor of Degrees of Separation: Bohumil Kubišta and the European Avant-Garde (University of Chicago Press).

Nicholas Sawicki is Professor and Chair of the Department of Art, Architecture, and Design at Lehigh University. He specializes in early 20th-century Central European modernism, with a focus on Jewish artists, writers, and Prague’s visual culture. He is the author of monographs on the group “the Eight” and on painter-printmaker Friedrich Feigl, and has held fellowships at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Getty Research Institute, and the Leo Baeck Institute.

Ross Benjamin is an acclaimed writer and award-winning translator of German-language literature. He translated the new, uncensored edition of The Diaries of Franz Kafka (Schocken Books, 2023), praised by The New York Times as “essential… a revelation upon revelation.” His work has received the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator’s Prize and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

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Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Bohemian National Hall, 321 East 73rd Street, New York, United States

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