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Required textbooks:

Disjunctively required textbooks (you have to get one or the other of these, but not both):

Optional textbook:

You'll be required to bring physical copies of the textbooks to class. Most of these books have been in print for quite a while, and you can save money by finding them used. Be careful, however, to stick with the recommended translations: there are many translations of Nietzsche, and not all of them are respectable.

Additional readings will be made available through the Marriott Library reserve desk. (See Marriott's Course Reserve How to Guide for an intro to using the library reserves.)

Remember, the secondary readings are assigned as targets for your papers. Don't assume they've gotten Nietzsche right; look for the mistakes they're making.

Reading Assignments:

  1. Aug. 22: Introduction. Optional prereading: Lanier Anderson, "Nietzsche" (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

    If you read French (or even if you don't), check out Maximilien Le Roy and Michel Onfray, Nietzsche (book available at the Marriott Library reserve desk).

    Straight Readings of Nietzsche: The Eternal Return. We'll discuss the following passages, and if you're able to, please look them over in advance: GS 341, BGE 56, Z III.2.2 ("On the Vision and the Riddle," beginning with "Stop, dwarf!"), Z III.13 ("The Convalescent") and WP 1061-1066 (and here's a list of those abbreviations for Nietzsche's works).

    Optional followon readings: Danto, "Eternal Recurrence" (online reserve); Soll, "Reflections on Recurrence" (online reserve); Zuboff, "Nietzsche and Eternal Recurrence" (online reserve); Nehamas, Nietzsche: Life as Literature, ch. 5 ("This Life -- Your Eternal Life"; chapter on online reserve); Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being (excerpt, online reserve); Maudemarie Clark, Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy (book available from Marriott), ch. 8 ("Eternal Recurrence").

  2. Aug. 29: Straight Readings of Nietzsche: The Genealogy. Reading: All of the Genealogy of Morals; each hour of the class will be devoted to one of the three essays. This is our first pass over it, so you're reading quickly, for an overview. However, slow down and pay close attention when you get to the following key passages: GM I.13-14, II.2, 12-13. And please also take a look at D 44 and 95.

    Optional followon reading: If you're starting to think about writing your first paper, Ian Anthony, "Metaphysical Doubling contra ad Hominem," is a model paper by a former student (on reserve under the title "Model Paper"), that discusses GM I.13. Robert Solomon, "Nietzsche ad Hominem" (online reserve), and "One Hundred Years of Ressentiment" (available shortly) set up the question of what 'genealogy' is; we'll keep coming back to it over the course of the semester, and they're useful foils for papers on the topic. Time permitting, we'll discuss ideas from Lanier Anderson, "Nietzschean Autonomy and the Meaning of the 'Sovereign Individual'", and Ken Gemes, "We Remain of Necessity Strangers to Ourselves" (online reserve). If you're looking for targets for your papers, these essays are recommended.

    Happy Labor Day -- take Beyond Good and Evil to the beach!

    Paper topics have been distributed -- make sure you have a copy.

  3. Sept. 5: Straight Readings of Nietzsche: Metaethics and Metaphysics. Reading: BGE Part I, plus BGE 39, 42-43, 203, 210-213, 268; GS 110-112, 121, 354. (But you may want to read straight through, as much of BGE as you have time for, so that you have a sense of the context.) Hour-by-hour breakdown:
    • Inventing Values. Please pay close attention to BGE 42-43, 203, 210-213; review GM P.6. Secondary reading: Nadeem Hussain, "Honest Illusion" (online reserve). Optional followon reading: "The Role of Life in the Genealogy".
    • Atomism and the Will. Please pay close attention to BGE 18-19, 21. Secondary reading: Katsafanas, "Nietzsche's Philosophical Psychology" (online reserve).
    • Atomism, Logic and the Self. Please pay close attention to BGE 11-12, 14, 16-17, 20, 39, 268; GS 110-112, 121, 354. Secondary reading: Anderson, "What Is a Nietzschean Self?"

      Optional followon reading: Brian Leiter, "Nietzsche's Theory of the Will"; Maudemarie Clark and David Dudrick, "Nietzsche on the Will: An Analysis of BGE 19" (online reserve). (This back-and-forth is a plausible paper target.)
      More of Anderson's picture of the Nietzschean self: Anderson, "Nietzsche on Strength and Achieving Individuality, "Nietzsche on Autonomy", "Nietzschean Autonomy and the Meaning of the `Sovereign Individual" (also paper targets).
  4. Sept. 12: Who Are the Philosophers of Future? Paying Attention to the Elephant in the Room. Reading: BGE Parts VI-VIII, plus 197f, 200, 284 and secondary readings as below. Hour-by-hour breakdown:
    • The Worst Monologue You've Ever Listened To. Please pay close attention to BGE 197-198. Secondary literature: Nehamas, "Who Are 'The Philosophers of the Future'? A Reading of Beyond Good and Evil" (online reserve).

      Optional reading: Nehamas, "The Postulated Author" (online reserve).
    • Drive-Bys! Reading: Review BGE VI; please pay close attention to 223-224, 231-239, 240-251, plus Maudemarie Clark, "Nietzsche's Misogyny" (online reserve), GS 348.
      Optional reading (model paper): Louise Pedersen, "Nietzsche's Misogyny: A Methodological Illustration of Value Creation" (online reserve).
    • Drive Recruitment. Reading: Nathan Porter, "Philology of the Self" (ch. 3 [= pp. 37-56] of Life with No Strings Attached, online reserve).
      Optional reading: A student asked why the guidelines for our papers include a list of forbidden words. For the answer, see Heather Douglas, "The Irreducible Complexity of Objectivity" (on reserve shortly).
  5. Sept. 19: Reading Zarathustra Straight. Reading: Z Preface, Parts I and II, GS 360 and secondary readings as below. Hour-by-hour breakdown:
    • Value Creation: A Call to Arms. Please pay close attention to Z I.1, I.3, I.12, I.15, I.17 (the table of contents at Portable Nietzsche pp. 112-114 will save you counting off the sections).

      Optional reading, for your amusement: Sharon Wahl, "I Also Dated Zarathustra" (on reserve in the Philosophy Department); Anthony Cross, "Frenemies: Nietzsche on the Nature and Value of Friendship" (available shortly).
    • How to Redeem a Coke Can. Reading: Please pay close attention to Z II.12, II.15, II.18, II.20. Anderson, "Nietzsche on Redemption and Transfiguration" (online reserve).

      Optional reading: Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The Over-Soul" (online reserve); Joshua Landy, "Mallarme: Irony and Enchantment" (available shortly).
    • Was Nietzsche a Virtue Ethicist? Reading: Christine Swanton, "Outline of a Nietzschean Virtue Ethics" (online reserve).

      Optional reading: Robert Solomon, "Nietzsche's Virtues" (online reserve); Robert Welshon, "Nietzsche’s Peculiar Virtues and the Health of the Soul" (online reserve). Model paper: Andrew Hayes, "Welshon's Pervasive Virtues and Nietzsche's Brief Habits" (on reserve in the Philosophy Department, and available shortly on online reserve).
  6. Sept. 26: Zarathustra in Context. Reading: Z Parts III and IV, and secondary readings as below. Hour-by-hour breakdown:
    • Why Is Zarathustra So Hard to Read? Please pay close attention to Z III.2, III.11, III.12.1-4, 8-12, 25-26, III.13; Bernard Reginster, from "Introduction" to The Affirmation of Life, from bottom of p. 4, "...this book has little to say..." to bottom of p. 5, "...the substance of Nietzsche's philosophy" (online reserve; click through to the book).

      Optional reading: Alasdair MacIntyre, "Nietzsche's Titanism" (online reserve).
    • Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the Higher Criticism (But Were Afraid to Ask). Optional reading: Hanina Ben-Menachem, "Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra and the Quran". Optional followon reading for the severely ambitious: Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel.
    • Revisiting Genealogy. Reading: Maudemarie Clark, "Nietzsche's Immoralism and the Concept of Morality" (on reserve in the Philosophy Department).

      Optional reading: David Strauss, Life of Jesus (excerpt, available shortly).
  7. Oct. 3: Truth in Perspective.
    • Supposing Truth is a Woman... What Then? (Then Nietzsche Must Have Been Reading Emerson). Reading: BGE Preface; GS, Preface to the Second Edition; secs. 11, 54, 57-59, 92, 107, 152, 261, 299, 374. Nietzsche, "Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense" (online reserve); review GS 110-112, 121, 354, Z III.12.8 (in "On Old and New Tablets"), Z II.12 ("On Self-Overcoming," first two paras. in Kaufmann's translation).

      Optional reading: Gemes, "Nietzsche's Critique of Truth". Followon reading: Clark, Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy, chs. 3-4.
    • The Priest's Perspective. Reading: BGE Book III. Optional reading: Lanier Anderson, "Truth and Objectivity in Perspectivism".
    • The (Self-Proclaimed) Noble Perspective. Reading: BGE IX.

      Optional reading: Anderson, "On the Nobility of Nietzsche's Priests" (online reserve).

    Have a great Fall Break -- read either Nehamas, Nietzsche: Life as Literature or Foucault, Madness and Civilization in Cancun!

  8. Oct. 17: Genealogy vs. Literary Interpretation.
    • A Genealogical Critique of Nietzsche's Genealogies. Reading: Foucault, Madness and Civilization (for those of you who've chosen this option).
      Optional reading: Foucault, "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History" (online reserve).
  9. Oct. 24: Genealogy, Authorship, Interpretation. (We'll be changing the past a little here.)
    • A Genealogical Critique of Foucault's Genealogies. Alasdair MacIntyre, "Genealogies and Subversions" (this is ch. 2 of his Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry; online reserve).
    • The Postulated Author. Reading: Nehamas, Nietzsche: Life as Literature (for those of you who've chosen this option). Nehamas, "The Postulated Author" (online reserve).
      Optional reading: Nehamas, "Writer, Text, Work, Author" (online reserve); Wimsatt and Beardsley, "The Intentional Fallacy" (online reserve).
    • The Genealogy of Postulated Authors. Reading: Foucault, "What Is an Author?" (online reserve).
      Optional reading: Lanier Anderson and Joshua Landy, "Philosophy as Self-Fashioning: Alexander Nehamas's Art of Living" (online reserve).
    • Gay Science, Read Straight. Reading: Start GS, aim to read all the way through over the course of two weeks. (However, you can skip the "Prelude in Rhymes" and the "Appendix of Songs".)

      Optional followon reading: Nietzsche, "On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life", in his Untimely Meditations.

  10. Oct. 31: What Is a "moraliste français"? Reading: The Gay Science (all of it, but by now you should be pretty far along).
    • Gay Science, Read Straight: Living in Style. Reading: Pippin, "What Is a Gay Science?" (online reserve); BGE Part IV ("Epigrams and Interludes").
    • Was Nietzsche a Realist? A Naturalist? Reading: Williams, "Nietzsche's Minimalist Moral Psychology" (online reserve). Optional reading: Mario de Caro, Naturalism in Question, pp. 1-9 (online reserve).
    • Nietzsche's French Moralist Phase. Reading: Daybreak, Preface and secs. 1, 7, 9, 14, 16, 18, 30, 34, 35, 103, 105, 107, 108, 109, 114-117, 119, 124, 127, 129, 133, 148; La Rochefoucauld, Reflections; it's short, and you can really just read the whole thing, but you only need nos. 220-279.

      Further followon reading: Nehamas, The Art of Living.

  11. Nov. 7: Nietzschean Metaethics! Reading: Twilight of the Idols.
    • Who Was Nietzsche's Convalescent? Further followon reading: Stendhal, On Love; Denis de Rougemont, Love in the Western World (for the very ambitious).
    • What Is Nihilism? Reading: CW 7, 2nd English para. in Kaufmann's translation (on BW p. 626, starting "For the present... "). Optional reading: WP P.2-3; WP 12, 27, 38, 43.
    • Fitting Nietzsche on the Map of Contemporary Metaethics. Reading: Hussain, "Nietzsche's Metaethical Stance" (available shortly). Optional reading: Hussain, "Nietzsche and Non-cognitivism" (on reserve in the Philosophy Department); Alan Thomas, "Nietzsche and Moral Fictionalism" (on reserve in the Philosophy Department); Smart, "Philosophical Problems of Cosmology" (available shortly).

      Further reading: Model paper, "Welshon’s Pervasive Virtues and Nietzsche’s Brief Habits" (online reserve, and in the Philosophy Department); Conant, "Nietzsche's Perfectionism".

  12. Nov. 14: Taking the Antichrist for a Drive. Reading: The Antichrist.
    • Will to Power and Decadence. WP P.2, P.3, 27, 38, 43, 12 (A), 634, 656, 643, 1067 (on last session handout). Review BGE 36, GM 2.12 (last para. in Kaufmann's English rendering), GS 13 (1st English para.), GM 2.11 (last English para.) Z 2.12 ("On Self-Overcoming"). Optional reading: Maudemarie Clark, "Nietzsche's Doctrines of the Will to Power" (online reserve).
    • What Was the Antichrist's Dominant Drive? Reading: Wagner, "Judaism in Music" (online reserve). Optional reading for the very ambitious: Wieder die Juden: Judentum und Antisemitismus in der Publizistik aus sieben Jahrhunderten (available from Marriott).
  13. Nov. 21: Tales of the 'Upending'.
    • Nietzsche the Neo-Kantian. Review BGE 15. Optional followon reading, for the very ambitious: Lange, History of Materialism.
    • How Are Drives Individuated? Optional reading: Aschheim, The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany (on reserve in Marriott); Ben Macintyre, Forgotten Fatherland: The Search for Elisabeth Nietzsche (available in Marriott).
    • Nietzsche's Girlfriend. Optional reading: Hollingdale, "Lou Salome"; followon reading, for the very interested: Rudolph Binion, Frau Lou: Nietzsche's Wayward Disciple (not on reserve, but available from Marriott).

    Have a great Thanksgiving -- read Ecce Homo on the plane!

  14. Nov. 28: The Return of the Eternal Return! Reading: Ecce Homo.
    • Decadence! Reading: The Case of Wagner. Leonard Sax, "What was the Cause of Nietzsche's Dementia?" (online reserve). Further followon reading, for the very ambitious: Klossowski, Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle.
    • Perspectivism and Value Creation. Optional reading: Nietzsche Contra Wagner. Optional listening, for people who have way too much free time: Richard Wagner, Der Ring des Nibelungen.
    • Nietzsche's Best Buddy (for a While).

      Followon reading: Paul Reé, Basic Writings; Robin Small, Nietzsche and Reé: A Star Friendship (both available from Marriott, but not on reserve).

  15. Dec. 5: The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism. Reading: The Birth of Tragedy. Optional reading: Georges Liebert, Nietzsche on Music; optional listening: Nietzsche, "Hymn to Life" (CD on reserve in the Philosophy Department); Complete Solo Piano Works (CD available from Marriott); piano music on Spotify.

    Robert Pippin will give a talk in the Department on Friday, Dec. 7: "Is There a Philosophical Point to Nietzsche's Literary Style? The 'New Philosophers' in Beyond Good and Evil'" (2:30-4:30, Tanner Library).