Thurber vs Kafka: The Paradox of Humor

Author Drew Zimmerman will lead you through close readings of two titans of literature whose works are never considered side-by-side but ought to be. The hilarity in Thurber’s short stories and cartoons obscures what the author called “the damp hand of melancholy.” Kafka’s place in the literature of existential dread is often asserted, but his skill as a humorist is unappreciated. With the assistance of attendees, the lecturer hopes to rehabilitate deficits in the scholarship on two of the twentieth century’s great masters of the short story.