Free Republic

The term “kafkatrapping” describes a logical fallacy that is popular within gender feminism, racial politics and other ideologies of victimhood. It occurs when you are accused of a thought crime such as sexism, racism or homophobia. You respond with an honest denial, which is then used as further confirmation of your guilt. You are now trapped in a circular and unfalsifiable argument; no one who is accused can be innocent because the structure of kafkatrapping precludes that possibility. The term derives from Franz Kafka’s novel The Trial in which a nondescript bank clerk named Josef K. is arrested; no charges...

Franz Kafka is one of those authors whose name has become an adjective, as in Shakespearean or Faulknerian or this dictionary entry: Kafka-esque -- adj., referring to the nightmarish, surreal, illogical quality Franz Kafka evoked in works like "The Metamorphosis," "The Castle" and "The Trial." No wonder Franz Kafka was able to capture the maddeningly frustrating world of the modern bureaucrat so well. He was one. And a pretty good one, too: conscientious, adaptable, public-spirited and practical. At least to judge from the latest collection of his work, which is not a volume of short stories, but office memos...

Imagine the crushing judicial power of a modern nation coming down upon you, trying you, sentencing you, and then planning your execution – all while the charges against you remain secret. You might recall that as the plot of Franz Kafka’s paranoiac novel, The Trial, the protagonist of which is a 30-year-old bank clerk. Under the spell of Kafka’s masterful telling, the reader is left feeling almost as though the horror of the sentence pales in comparison to simply not knowing why. I revisited the haunted feeling of that novel over the past week or so as the case of...

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Writings by Franz Kafka and his friend Max Brod which have been hidden away for decades have been brought to light at an Israeli court and could reveal more on the life of one of the 20th century's greatest authors. > Kafka's "The Trial," "The Castle" and "Amerika" were published after his death when Brod, his close friend and biographer, ignored the writer's dying wish to burn all unpublished work. > Scholars say Hoffe defied Brod's wishes to make his archive available to researchers, putting the papers out of reach. In 1988 she reportedly made millions by...

Ed Hudgins, Washington director of The Objectivist Center, recently acquired an unusual item: a rare copy of the June 1953 issue of Famous Fantastic Mysteries, a graphic novel that featured a reprint of Ayn Rand’s novelette Anthem. With Ed’s permission, we’re happy to reproduce here the (somewhat lurid!) cover page of this rare graphic novel.