The class meeting as devoted to the examination of the accident as a contingent event that characterizes modernity. We devoted the first part of the session to the emergence of the accidental as a new type of event in the context of modern means of mass transportation. Since the 1830s, the railway system emerged in European countries that introduced a new type of speed and collectivity into travel. It challenged traditional forms of experience. In this context, the first accident occurred that were widely spread through modern media such as the newspaper that was a bit later also able to add photographic evidence to its narratives. It is in the wake of this modernization that the clinical observation of trauma first occurs under the name of "railway spine." traumatic events are therefore typical modern events that challenge comprehension and experience. In our discussion of the literary texts we looked at accounts that discuss the difference between newspaper and literary representation. Both Mann and Joyce establish their narratives against the backdrop of media language and newspaper reports play an important role as a theme as well. For Kafka, the juridical perspective was crucial – an aspect of accidents he was familiar with from his work as an employee of the public insurance company in Prague. In Virginia Woolf, finally, the dimension of the social and the way that accidents synchronize the social space was the focus of our discussion. A more nuanced perspective on the role of the accident in the discourse of modernity emerged through our discussion.