Keywords: art, asceticism, Franz Kafka, gesture{"id":5291,"date":"2024-05-20T23:02:49","date_gmt":"2024-05-20T21:02:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scuoladipsicanalisifreudiana.it\/?p=5291"},"modified":"2024-05-24T23:09:44","modified_gmt":"2024-05-24T21:09:44","slug":"the-art-of-fasting-the-last-short-stories-of-franz-kafka-with-an-appendix-on-balzac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scuoladipsicanalisifreudiana.it\/en\/the-art-of-fasting-the-last-short-stories-of-franz-kafka-with-an-appendix-on-balzac\/","title":{"rendered":"The art of fasting: the last short stories of Franz Kafka. With an appendix on Balzac"},"content":{"rendered":"[vc_section full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1563899907460{background-color: #000000 !important;}”][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”273″ img_size=”large” css=”.vc_custom_1563985509832{padding-top: 20px !important;}”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][\/vc_section][vc_section el_id=”abstractContent”][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”20px”][vc_custom_heading text=”The art of fasting: the last short stories of Franz Kafka. With an appendix on Balzac” font_container=”tag:h1|text_align:left|color:%23e94e1b” google_fonts=”font_family:Roboto%3A100%2C100italic%2C300%2C300italic%2Cregular%2Citalic%2C500%2C500italic%2C700%2C700italic%2C900%2C900italic|font_style:700%20bold%20regular%3A700%3Anormal”][vc_custom_heading text=”pp. 155-173″ font_container=”tag:p|font_size:25px|text_align:left|color:%23000000″ google_fonts=”font_family:Roboto%3A100%2C100italic%2C300%2C300italic%2Cregular%2Citalic%2C500%2C500italic%2C700%2C700italic%2C900%2C900italic|font_style:700%20bold%20regular%3A700%3Anormal”][vc_empty_space height=”20px”][vc_custom_heading text=”Michele Bertolini” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:25px|text_align:left|color:%23000000″ google_fonts=”font_family:Roboto%3A100%2C100italic%2C300%2C300italic%2Cregular%2Citalic%2C500%2C500italic%2C700%2C700italic%2C900%2C900italic|font_style:700%20bold%20regular%3A700%3Anormal”][vc_empty_space height=”20px”][vc_column_text]The essay proposes a reading of one of Kafka\u2019s last short stories, A Hunger Artist<\/em>, as an interpretive key to understanding some contemporary art practices marked by the poetics of silence, absence, subtraction, exile and isolation. Through an analysis of the reflections on gesture as a pure medium elaborated by Benjamin, Adorno and Agamben, the figure of the faster, like those of the trapeze artist and of the mouse Josephine the songstress, at the center of the Prague writer\u2019s last literary collection, delineate a performative practice that shifts the center of gravity of art from aesthetics to ethics, toward an art of living and everyday behaviour. The art of the faster, in Kafka\u2019s tale, assumes the character of a somatic-spiritual and ascetic technique, capable of suspending subservience to the natural impulse of hunger, loading itself with possible ethical-political meanings and regaining the original meaning of the artistic event. The bulimic collecting and enormous appetite of the protagonist of Balzac\u2019s last great novel, Cousin Pons<\/em>, represent, on the other hand, the mirror reversal of the ascetic fasting of Kafka\u2019s character and underscore another fundamental character of modernity: the impulse to accumulate signs, objects, and works in front of which is mirrored the silent withdrawal of the faster.[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text][\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Find it on Mimesis Journals<\/a>[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]How to cite (Chicago style citation):<\/p>\n

Bertolini, Michele, \u201cL\u2019arte del digiuno: gli ultimi racconti di Franz Kafka. Con un\u2019appendice su Balzac”, no.1 (2023), pp. 155-173[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”20px”][vc_empty_space height=”20px”][vc_column_text]< Torna all\u2019indice del numero<\/a>[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”50px”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][\/vc_section]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The essay proposes a reading of one of Kafka\u2019s last short stories, A Hunger Artist, as an interpretive key to understanding some contemporary art practices marked by the poetics of silence, absence, subtraction, exile and… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[591],"tags":[635,637,631,636],"class_list":["post-5291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-documents-hunger","tag-art-en","tag-asceticism-en","tag-franz-kafka-en","tag-gesture-en"],"yoast_head":"\n