Friends and Adjuncts: J. P. Hebel, Kafka, Benjamin, Sebald

He was a favorite among seminal German writers and thinkers such as Goethe, Kafka, and Walter Benjamin. Nonetheless, Johann Peter Hebel’s work remains largely unknown outside of German-speaking countries and is generally ignored by the academy. In this seminar we will read Hebel’s poetry and prose alongside some of the seminal works of those who wrote and thought with him as unexpected friends or adjuncts. In English.