In his new book
Autopoiesis and Literature: The Short History of an Endless Process (
Autopoiesis und Literatur: Die kurze Geschichte eines endlosen Verfahrens [transcript, 2016]),
Marcel Schmid, a visiting postdoc at the German Department of Brown University, analyzes the concept of "autopoiesis." By reading Heinrich von Kleist as well as Franz Kafka's
The Trial, he focuses on particular dimensions of the concept: beginning, addressing, interrupting, repeating, translating and shifting of knowledge. Concerning Kafka's
Trial, he pays particular attention to its centerpiece "Before the Law." In addition, Schmid moves beyond the literary studies perspective by approaching autopoieses from an interdisciplinary standpoint.