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Article: 'Plenty of hope, an infinite amount of hope--but not for us'. Cultural studies in the shadow of catastrophe.(Critical Essay)
- Article from:
- Arena Journal
- Article date:
- September 22, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Arena Printing and Publications Pty. Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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My title refers to one of those wonderful witty faux-naif moments in Kafka. Walter Benjamin tells the story, in his essay on Kafka in Illuminations. In conversation with a contemporary, Kafka said that human beings are nihilistic thoughts, suicidal thoughts, that come into God's head; yet perhaps, Kafka goes on, our world is only a bad mood of God's, a bad day of his. Then, said his interlocutor, 'There is hope outside this manifestation of the world as we know it?' Kafka apparently enigmatically smiled: 'Oh, plenty of hope, an infinite amount of hope--but not for us'. (1)
I think I am perversely obsessed by this Kafka anecdote. I tell it in the mosaic of ...