The Oxford Kafka Research Centre (https://www.kafka-research.ox.ac.uk/) is delighted to announce that its Undergraduate Kafka Essay Prize competition, which was inaugurated last year to mark the centenary of Kafka’s death, will become an annual event, generously funded by Wadham College alumnus Nigel Jones.
Nigel Jones says: “‘When I saw the Bodleian exhibition marking the centenary of Kafka’s death, I had the idea of sponsoring the prize to celebrate his works, which I enjoyed studying as an undergraduate student of German in the 1980s. Everyone now knows something of Kafka as a cultural icon, but I wanted to offer today’s undergraduate students the opportunity to go back to study the texts in detail and appreciate them for the quality of his writing. Like us, Kafka lived in a period of rapid social, economic, political and technological change, and his insights are just as unsettling and relevant now as they must have been in his own day.”
Carolin Duttlinger, Co-Director of the Oxford Kafka Research Centre, says: “We are hugely grateful to Nigel Jones for this generous gift, which will encourage current and future undergraduates to engage with Kafka’s fascinating works in the context of modern culture. This annual competition is a vital part of our outreach work, which aims to inspire the next generation of Kafka readers and, hopefully, scholars.”
The Kafka Undergraduate Essay Prize 2025: Identities
Prize: £1,000
Franz Kafka was born in Prague, a multilingual city within the multi-ethnic Habsburg Empire. In this environment, he was daily confronted with different groups living side by side, a situation which caused both friction and opportunities. Kafka’s writings are highly attuned to the question of identity. They feature people (and sometimes animals) from all walks of life who are trying to make their way in often challenging situations. To analyse the role of identity in Kafka’s writings, we encourage submissions on one of the following topics. To analyse the role of identity in Kafka’s writings, we encourage submissions that either make Kafka their sole focus or pursue a comparative approach, comparing his writings to other works from the early twentieth century in literature or in other art forms and media.
Essay topics:
- Gender, sexuality, class and ethnicity. Kafka’s works bring together characters from very different backgrounds. Focussing on ONE or TWO of these categories, discuss how these identities shape his writings.
- Non-human identities. Discuss the portrayal of animals and/or other non-human agents in Kafka's writings.
- Collective identities. Discuss the role of group dynamics and communities in Kafka’s writings, whether locally (in the village, at work, in the family) and on a national or transnational level (e.g. in stories of migration and conflict).
Each entrant must choose one of the above topics and may submit only one essay. Essays may focus solely on Kafka, or compare his writings to other works (literary and non-literary) from the modernist period (1890-1945).
Eligibility: Entrants must currently be enrolled in a course of German (single honours or with another subject) at a university in the UK.
Language of the essay: English
Quotations and references to primary and secondary sources: All quotations from Kafka’s work must be in the original German and use an edition based on either the Fischer Kafka Kritische Ausgabe or the Historical-Critical Facsimile Edition. The essay must have a bibliography including all sources used, with separate sections for primary sources and criticism.
Maximum length: 2,500 words excluding bibliography and footnotes.
Submission: Essays should be submitted in PDF format by 1 April 2025 at noon to the following email address: kafka@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk. The covering email should include the following declaration: “I confirm that the essay is my own work and does not include unacknowledged material produced by others or by AI tools.” It should also give the name, university and degree course of the entrant as well as their year of study.
The winner will be invited to a prize-giving ceremony in Oxford on 27 June 2025.
The Oxford Kafka Research Centre is grateful to Nigel Jones for generously funding this prize.