{"product_id":"constructing-china-kafkas-orientalist-discourse","title":"Constructing China: Kafka's Orientalist Discourse","description":"Kafka's interest in and use of China establish him as a principal commentator in Western discourse on the Orient.\n\nGoebel studies four representative works by Kafka that explore the problems of the Western representation of the Orient: his 'Description of a Struggle'; several letters to Felice Bauer, offering an interpretation of Chinese poetry in connection with the conflict between writing and Kafka's love for Felice; the canonical story 'The Great Wall of China', parodically appropriating sterotypes of China's stagnant history and authoritarian emperors for a refutation of colonialist ideas of progress; and the sequel 'An Old Manuscript', dramatising China's invasion by foreign powers and the breakdown of crosscultural communication. Elucidating these themes from a broadly comparative perspective, Goebel shows Kafka to be one of German modernism's most intriguing and self-reflective writers on the Orient.\nROLF J. GOEBEL is Professor of German at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.","brand":"Boydell \u0026 Brewer Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Product","offer_id":54217699557720,"sku":"9781571131447","price":77.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0278\/1295\/4195\/files\/9781571131447__67653410151fd.jpg?v=1741157077","url":"https:\/\/agendabookshop.com\/products\/constructing-china-kafkas-orientalist-discourse","provider":"Agenda Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}