How to Research Like a Dog – Kafka`s New Science

Aaron Schuster

Written toward the end of Kafka's life, Investigations of a Dog (Forschungen eines Hundes, 1922) is one of the lesser-known and most enigmatic works in the author's oeuvre. Kafka's tale of philosophical adventure is that of a lone, maladjusted dog who challenges the dogmatism of established science and pioneers an original research program in pursuit of the mysteries of his self and his world.

In How to Research Like a Dog, Aaron Schuster uses the canine as a guide dog to rediscover Kafka's fictional universe, while taking up the cause of this ingenious, possessed, melancholy, comical, and revolutionary thinker. Neither an exercise in literary criticism nor a traditional philosophical commentary, this charming and idiosyncratic book aligns itself with the research program of Kafka's dog. It constructs an "impossible" system based on the fourfold division of nourishment, music, incantation, and freedom – or, stated a bit differently: enjoyment, art, institutions, and freedom. From Plato to Flaubert, Lispector, and Lacan, Schuster puts the dog in dialogue with psychoanalytic theory, the history of philosophy, and modern literature. Imagining the "Unknown University" that Kafka's new science calls for, the book enlists new comrades in the dog's struggle.

Aaron Schuster, philosopher and writer, Amsterdam

Article based on How to Research Like a Dog: The MIT Press Reader
Excerpt from the book: The Paris Review

BOOK PRESENTATION & DISCUSSION

Friday, January 17, 2025, 6 p.m.
University of Applied Arts Vienna
Seminar room 21, 4th floor
Vordere Zollamtsstraße 7
1030 Vienna

With
Aaaron Schuster, author

Response:
Alexi Kukuljevic

Moderation:
Antonia Birnbaum, department of Philosophy, University of Applied Arts Vienna

An event by the departments of Art Theory and Philosophy

How to Research Like a Dog – Kafka`s New Science
Aaron Schuster

The MIT Press, 2024
ISBN: ‎ 978-0262543545

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