Kafka’s ‘Before the Law’: The participation of the subject in its subjectification
通过分析卡夫卡《审判》中的章节，探讨主体如何参与自身主体化过程，反思权力理论中过度强调抵抗或主体无力的倾向，对组织研究中的主体化辩论有补充作用。
This paper presents a close encounter between the literary works of Franz Kafka and a core topic in organizational theories of power, namely the participation of subjects in their own subjectification. In discussing ‘In the Cathedral’, the penultimate chapter of The Trial by Franz Kafka, the paper develops three central aspects of Kafka’s text: reflexivity as a form of entanglement with power, self-slander complementing formal involvement, and humour as a form of freedom. These aspects are mirrored against the example of performance evaluation to complement and enrich the theoretical debate about subjectification more generally. The paper and its contributions serve as a corrective to approaches that overemphasize either the possibilities of resistance, for example through reflexivity, or the impotence of the subject in the face of power.