Franz Kafka and the Truths of Leadership

As part of a year of events marking the centenary of the death of the writer Franz Kafka, join us on Friday 7th June 2024 for a conversation between Leah Tomkins, author of new book Franz Kafka and the Truths of Leadership (Edward Elgar Publishing) and the journalist and broadcaster Shelagh Fogarty.

Franz Kafka is a writer who seems to crystallise modern understandings of the institutions of work, family, religion and the law, especially when they go awry. Images from stories such as The Trial and The Metamorphosis have soaked into the cultural conversation to such an extent that the expression ‘Kafkaesque’ immediately conjures up a mix of the awful and the absurd.

Challenging the popular view of Kafka as patron-saint of the underdog, and emphasising the significance of his own work as a leader, Leah's book explores Kafka’s expertise in the exercise of power. Kafka anticipates many of the core themes of leadership - both good and bad - but especially leadership of the populist, ‘post-truth’ kind, where facts are often overpowered by fictions and fantasies. Whether we are leaders ourselves or simply affected by others who make rulings on our behalf, the book offers provocative new ideas about how leading can so easily become misleading - and what we might be able to do about it.

In today’s world, where half-truths and ‘alternative facts’ can inspire people to action, Kafka has never been more relevant. To bring this to life, the conversation with Shelagh will include a discussion of well-known political leaders - not just those who exemplify ‘post-truth’ tactics, such as Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, but also others, including Barack Obama and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whose approaches to leadership also contain fascinating elements of the ‘Kafkaesque’.

The event will be introduced by Richard Ovenden, the Bodley’s Librarian, and is followed by a drinks reception.

This event is generously supported by ROUNDHOUSE FINANCIAL SERVICES (LONDON) LIMITED.

THE VENUE

Entrance to this event is via the Cheng Kar Shun Digital Hub entrance on Market Street, Oxford (opposite Wagamama). Lift access is available to all floors. If you have any questions about accessibility or other support requirements for this event, please contact digitalhub@jesus.ox.ac.uk.

DOORS OPEN AT 16.45.

17.00 - 18.00 TALK

18.00 - 19.00 DRINKS RECEPTION

*Filming and photography will be taking place during the event. If you do not wish to be photographed, please notify a member of the Hub team on arrival.

BIOGRAPHIES

Leah Tomkins is an independent writer, scholar and consultant. Academic affiliations include Sassoon Visiting Fellow at the Bodleian, Oxford and Visiting Professor at the University of the West of England. Her work is proudly interdisciplinary, interweaving issues of leadership, management and organizational behaviour with literature, language and philosophy, and extending these insights into key contemporary debates, such as the advent of AI and the flourishing of ‘fake news’ and ‘post-truth’ communication. Drawing on her corporate career, including in leadership roles at Accenture, KPMG, and The Cabinet Office, she specialises in making the most complex of topics accessible and relevant. Leah fell in love with Kafka at the age of 17, when The Metamorphosis was one of her German A Level set- texts. In the decades since, she has read and re-read him, each time seeing new possibilities and provocations for how we live our lives both in and beyond the institutions that seek to define us.

Shelagh Fogarty is a popular TV and radio broadcaster and journalist, currently presenting the weekday afternoon show for LBC. Previously, she presented the lunchtime show for BBC Five Live and alongside Nicky Campbell she co-presented Five Live’s breakfast show where they won multiple Sony Radio Awards. Shelagh’s BBC career included anchoring coverage of the American presidential elections, broadcasting live from St Peters Square in Rome for the funeral of Pope John Paul II and covering the devastation of the Boxing Day tsunami from Thailand. A compassionate and thoughtful journalist, Shelagh was invited to cover the live service at Anfield marking the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough tragedy, and has reported on the James Bulger murder trial and the Madrid train bombings. With her intelligent, sometimes irreverent sense of humour, Shelagh has a knack for making politics and hard-hitting news stories accessible and engaging.