Department of Media Studies, Easwari School of Liberal Arts (ESLA), SRM University-AP, is hosting a talk titled “Kafka the Hikikomori:Decision, Procrastination, and Melancholy”. The talk invites audiences into a rich philosophical exploration of decision-making, hesitation, and the emotional realities of modern existence.
The session examines how acts of delay, uncertainty, and withdrawal shape human thought and behaviour. Rather than viewing procrastination or indecision as weaknesses, the lecture frames them as meaningful conditions shaped by reflection, possibility, and the pressure of choice in contemporary life.
Concept and Intellectual Context
Drawing on the works of Franz Kafka, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, and Gilles Deleuze, the lecture places literature and philosophy into dialogue to rethink how decisions are formed. Kafka’s protagonists—often caught in cycles of waiting, doubt, and repetition—become figures through which modern psychological and social conditions can be understood.
Leibniz’s reflections on deliberation and hesitation are revisited to examine how thought itself can suspend action. Deleuze’s reinterpretation of decision as struggle rather than assertion opens up a different way of understanding agency—not as a moment of certainty, but as a process shaped by time, repetition, and difference. The talk also engages ideas associated with Félix Guattari to consider how identity, environment, and social structures influence our ability to act.
Central to the lecture is the contemporary phenomenon of hikikomori, or extreme social withdrawal. Reading Kafka through this lens, the session explores how isolation, introspection, and emotional fatigue shape modern subjectivity. Decision emerges not as a simple exercise of willpower, but as something fragile, delayed, and negotiated within a complex web of internal and external pressures.
Speaker
Joff P N Bradley
Full Professor of English and Philosophy at Teikyo University, Tokyo. His research spans cinema studies, post-media theory, Deleuze studies, educational philosophy, and Japanese cultural contexts. With extensive international academic engagement, his work explores how philosophy intersects with technology, media, and contemporary social life.
Why This Talk Matters
In a world defined by constant decision-making, information overload, and growing social isolation, this lecture asks urgent questions:
- What does it mean to hesitate in an age that demands speed and productivity?
- Can procrastination be understood as a philosophical condition rather than a personal failure?
- How do repetition, reflection, and self-awareness reshape our capacity to act?
- What might it mean to interrupt cycles of melancholy and reclaim agency?
By connecting philosophy, literature, and contemporary lived experience, the session offers new ways to understand emotional life, intellectual struggle, and the complexities of modern subjectivity.
Audience
This lecture is open to students, researchers, faculty, and anyone interested in philosophy, literature, media studies, psychology, and contemporary cultural thought. It will be particularly relevant for those exploring questions of decision-making, procrastination, self-reflection, and the experience of living in an increasingly introspective and disconnected world.