City of Ithaca affirms Cornell-community Kafka reading collaboration

By Franklin Crawford

On July 12, city of Ithaca Mayor Carolyn Peterson issued a proclamation designating 2004 as the year of "A Cornell-Community Collaboration of Ithaca Reads The Trial." The Trial, of course, is the title of Franz Kafka's famous novel and the subject of the 2004 New Student Reading Project at Cornell.

But Cornell students and Ithaca Common Council members Michael Taylor (D-4th Ward) and Gayraud Townsend (D-4th Ward) want to garner even wider support for the collaboration. So, on Aug. 4, Taylor and Townsend will introduce a resolution, similar to the mayor's proclamation, for approval during a regular Common Council meeting.

"The idea is to gain the full public support of council for the collaboration, and it makes sense that Gayraud and I, as Cornell students, introduce the resolution," Taylor said. "It's another example of a growing spirit of collaboration between Cornell and the city of Ithaca, and we want to encourage that."

Taylor said the resolution also may help institutionalize the Cornell-Ithaca reading project and make it a tradition.

Now in its fourth year, Cornell's New Student Reading Project has indeed developed into a town-gown affair. In a July 19 editorial in the Ithaca Journal, Isaac Kramnick, vice provost for undergraduate education, described the birth of the town-gown collaborations on the project, with the Cornell student and community reading of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in 2002. The editorial was co-written with Sally Grubb, event coordinator for the Tompkins County Public Library.

This year, Cornell supplied more than 1,100 copies of The Trial to the public library. In August, the library will distribute books to 10th-grade students in city as well as rural area schools throughout the county. Meanwhile, Grubb said all 125 public library copies of The Trial were charged out as of mid-July.

In addition to community book club readings sponsored by the library, Cornell is funding a "mayor's prize" for the best high school student essays on The Trial. Three prizes -- gift certificates to a local bookstore -- totaling $300 will be distributed. Winners will be announced in November. The Tompkins County Bar Association will hold a public debate on themes related to The Trial and, in an effort to expand on the notion of "community read," Cornell faculty and students are involved in plans to bring the reading of The Trial into area detention centers.

"And local reading groups will continue to pop up as we go along," said Grubb.

Rachel Lampert, the Kitchen Theatre director who adapted Frankenstein to the small downtown theater's stage, is collaborating with local performers to create an original production of The Trial, which will run from Sept. 2 to Sept. 25.

Up on campus, the New Student Reading Project kicks off Sunday, Aug. 22, at 3:30 p.m., when the Barton Hall panel discussion on The Trial is broadcast live on Time Warner Cable Channel 16. On Monday, Aug. 23, about 3,500 Cornell students, led by administrators, faculty members, graduate students and staff, will meet in 230 groups across campus to discuss Kafka's book. More than 20,000 Cornell alumni from 23 classes also have gotten involved in the Kafka reading project.

"The remarkable thing about the alumni involvement is that they started this on their own," said Kramnick. "They reached out to us as a way to keep in touch with what's going on at the university."

For a complete listing of community events or to view the mayor's proclamation online, visit the Tompkins County Library's Web site at http://www.tcpl.org/trial/events.html. For campus and alumni readings and related events, visit the Cornell University Library Web site at http://www.library.cornell.edu/iris/kafka/.