On a Friday evening in October 1991, I attended a religious service at which the rabbi spoke of his recent visit to newly liberated Prague and of Franz Kafka's inextricable attachment to that magical city. The description of Prague's maze of endless alleyways and of Kafka's dark, but alluring literature fascinated me. Who was this assimilated German-speaking Jew? Why had the literary establishment created the eponymous term, "Kafkaesque", and what did it mean?

I had never read any of his work, nor did I know much about this man. Within a short time I read all, and reread most, of his oeuvre and biographical materials, and in 1993 I ventured to retrace his footprints in Prague. I realized that he and I had many similar interests. Although I had never penned my nightmares, I enjoyed reading his.

Kafka's stories were written not as a vocation, but were created after working hours by a "clerk in the Workers Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia". I have placed this term in quotations for several reasons. The Kingdom of Bohemia was a legal and political fiction, as the Hapsburgs of Austria-Hungary had governed Czech Bohemia against her will for three centuries. The institute was a seminal form of a safety and security net for employees suffering work related injuries. That it remained inefficient by virtue of its bureaucratic and legal morass troubled Kafka, a humanistic lawyer. This "clerk", as some Kafka scholars refer to him, went far beyond the duties one would expect from this pejorative term. Indeed, he advocated revisions in work procedures and equipment, empathized with the injured workers as so vividly described in his diary entries and letters, and even joined and participated in a union at his own workplace. I, too, had a labor background, teaching a course in labor and employment law, and arbitrating disputes as a third party neutral. I had found a "Brother in Arms"!

Since that fateful evening in 1991, I have published an article on Kafka's masterpiece - The Castle, and have read nearly every English translation of other leading Czech authors. Lending many students the works of such writers as Bohumil Hrabal and Karel Capek, and sharing critical discussions has brought much joy to this educator. To expand this pleasurable experience I hope to create a course that will afford more Drexel students this same opportunity.

When I decided to create this course in the spring of 2001, I realized that I had no experience teaching literature, and that is when I sought the assistance of Dr. Eva Thury whom I had known shared an interest in Central Europe. The resulting course is a joint effort to provide students with more than just "reading a few books" in "an easy elective to increase my GPA". Eva and I hope to expand your awareness of Central European culture, values, and history.

ENJOY!

Neal Orkin