Includes bibliographical references and index.

Both Giorgio Agamben and Franz Kafka are best known for their gloomy political worldview. A cautious study of Agamben?s references on Kafka, however, reveals another dimension right at the intersection of their works: a complex and unorthodox theory of freedom. The inspiration emerges from Agamben?s claims that ?it is a very poor reading of Kafka?s works that sees in them only a summation of the anguish of a guilty man before the inscrutable power?. Virtually all of Kafka?s stories leave us puzzled about what really happened. Was Josef K., who is butchered like a dog, defeated? And what about.