From the Body in Pain to the Body Transformed: Feminist and Trans Readings of Franz Kafka

Most scholarship has interpreted the representation of the "body" in Franz Kafka's oeuvre in ways that describe physical and psychological pain rather than a coming to terms with a body that is inhabited by more than one gender. This article focuses on the development of different readings of his works, from feminist to queer to transgender studies, over recent decades. While feminist theory opened discussions of gender ambivalences in Kafka's works, transgender theory has made it possible to read Kafka's The Metamorphosis and some of his other works as stories that appeal to scholarly inquiries that focus on emerging transgender communities and their fight for inclusion and acceptance in society through various disciplines such as law, politics, health, psychology, world literature, German Studies, contemporary fiction, and online fan fiction. Transgender groups have used Kafka's works to express nonbinary gender concepts to raise awareness and highlight the social isolation, rejection, and shame that Kafka describes and that those groups experience.