An Anthropological Study of Freud and Kafka

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25580072
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: European literature
• Research Institution: Matsuyama University (2014); Nagoya City University (2013)
• Principal Investigator: YAMAO Ryo 松山大学, 法学部, 准教授 (70639608)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): TSUCHIYA Masahiko 名古屋学院大学, 国際文化学部, 教授 (90135278)
• Research Collaborator: HEIN Christian 台湾大学
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: カフカ / フロイト / アントロポロギー / 身体観 / ドイツ文学

Outline of Final Research Achievements

How did Freud and Kafka discover their new human or body images? And how did their human- or body images influence them in the modern age? Their human images are basically similar. The keyword is "otherness”. Otherness in one’s own body, for example; the unconscious, illness and the libido, things which can not be controlled by the subject’s consciousness. Freud wrote about the ‘uncontrollableness’ in the body, namely the libido, unconscious and “es” in his papers, and Kafka described the ‘uncontrollableness’ of the body as such in his story “The Metamorphosis”.
From the anthropological, literary and pathological aspects, this research has interpreted the existence (Dasein) “otherness” in the human body which Freud and Kafka believed in.

Free Research Field

ドイツ文学