A cage in search of a bird
As part of Oxford’s AHRC-funded ‘Kafka’s Transformative Communities’ project, Reuben was delighted to host Dr Ian Ellison on Monday 7 May for an introduction to the author, The Metamorphosis and other texts.
Sat with a small but perfectly formed group of Reuben members and friends, Ian entertained and delighted with his comprehensive knowledge of the man and his work, retelling tantalizing anecdotes, exploring Kafka’s personal history and analysing his works’ changing reception over the 100 years since his death. Ian also provided a brilliant introduction to a myriad of events across Oxford over the next few months, including a Sheldonian concert, an Old Fire Station play, a Weston Library Exhibition of Kafka’s materials (moving then to New York), a Gala reading Event, UPP film viewing, Song Festival, International Conference, Book launches and much, much more.
For the specially produced ‘Oxford reads Kafka’ collection, Reuben members are encouraged to pick up their free copy from the first-floor common room. For further reading, see the publication on 30 May of a collection of 10 brand new stories inspired by Kafka’s work, under the title of ‘A Cage Went in Search of a Bird’. Thanks to Ian for an inspiring introduction and encouragement to delve deeper.
About Ian Ellison:
Ian Ellison is the post-doctoral research associate of the AHRC-funded Kafka’s Transformative Communities project at the University of Oxford and a Visiting Fellow of Wadham College. He holds a PhD in German and Comparative Literature from the University of Leeds and subsequently worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the German Literature Archive in Marbach am Neckar. From 2021 to 2023 he held a DAAD PRIME fellowship at the University of Kent’s Centre for Modern European Literature and Culture and the Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt am Main.
His first book Late Europeans and Melancholy Fiction at the Turn of the Millennium was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2022 and in 2023 he was shortlisted for the Peirene Stevns Translation Prize. He also writes for the Times Literary Supplement, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and the European Review of Books, and was recently longlisted for the 2024 Observer Anthony Burgess Award in Arts Journalism.
