The Late Works of Friedrich Nietzsche Seminar in Literature and Literary Culture

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German 8200 The Late Works of Friedrich Nietzsche Seminar in Literature and Literary Culture Holub | 3 credit units | M 9:00-11:48 | Autumn Semester 2012 The writings Nietzsche composed after he completed Zarathustra comprise some of his most interesting and provocative works. The aphoristic Beyond Good and Evil (1886) sets the tone for this final period, dealing with a variety of themes from epistemology and ethics to social and political observations. The Genealogy of Morals (1887) purports to clarify comments made in Beyond Good and Evil, providing a detailed explanation of Nietzsche’s critique of moral conventions in contemporary Europe, as well as reflections on their history and origins, and implications. In his final year Nietzsche produced a variety of short texts: two of these (Nietzsche Contra Wagner and The Case of Wagner) focus on the composer Richard Wagner, who was a veritable obsession for Nietzsche since the 1860s, but whom Nietzsche openly opposes only in these late works; one deals with Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity (The Antichrist/Antichristian), which was an ongoing concern in the 1880s; one contains more general themes and thoughts (Twilight of the Idols); and one is an unusual autobiography (Ecce Homo). In addition Nietzsche filled several hundred pages of notebooks with thoughts, schemes, and commentary on his reading; he completed a fifth section of The Gay Science (first four sections published in 1882; fifth section in 1887), and two prefaces for earlier works (Birth of Tragedy and The Gay Science). We will be examining this body of work, or at least a portion of it, to determine his last views on a variety of important topics and endeavor to place him in the context of nineteenth-century thought. The following assignments are anticipated: responsibility for leading one class discussion; one seminar paper presented during the last weeks of the semester. Prereq: 6500, Grad standing, or permission of instructor. Repeatable to a maximum of 30 cr hrs. Admis Cond course. germanic.osu.edu .

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Nietzsche and Aestheticism
University of Chicago Law School Chicago Unbound Journal Articles Faculty Scholarship 1992 Nietzsche and Aestheticism Brian Leiter Follow this and additional works at: https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/journal_articles Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Brian Leiter, "Nietzsche and Aestheticism," 30 Journal of the History of Philosophy 275 (1992). This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at Chicago Unbound. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal Articles by an authorized administrator of Chicago Unbound. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Notes and Discussions Nietzsche and Aestheticism 1o Alexander Nehamas's Nietzsche: L~fe as Literature' has enjoyed an enthusiastic reception since its publication in 1985 . Reviewed in a wide array of scholarly journals and even in the popular press, the book has won praise nearly everywhere and has already earned for Nehamas--at least in the intellectual community at large--the reputation as the preeminent American Nietzsche scholar. At least two features of the book may help explain this phenomenon. First, Nehamas's Nietzsche is an imaginative synthesis of several important currents in recent Nietzsche commentary, reflecting the influence of writers like Jacques Der- rida, Sarah Kofman, Paul De Man, and Richard Rorty. These authors figure, often by name, throughout Nehamas's book; and it is perhaps Nehamas's most important achievement to have offered a reading of Nietzsche that incorporates the insights of these writers while surpassing them all in the philosophical ingenuity with which this style of interpreting Nietzsche is developed. The high profile that many of these thinkers now enjoy on the intellectual landscape accounts in part for the reception accorded the "Nietzsche" they so deeply influenced.
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