Required textbooks:

• Oscar Wilde, Complete Works (Harper and Row)

  OK, this is slightly confusing: there are two volumes, both called The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, published by HarperCollins (formerly Harper and Row), and they're different. (And also are not to be confused with Oxford UP's multi-volume edition, which has the same title as well.)

  The older of the two is better -- the ISBN is 0-06-096393-X -- and it's your preferred option.

  But in case you're not able to find one at the bookstore, or online, you can get this ISBN: 978-0-00-714436-5.

• Neil Bartlett, Who Was That Man? A Present for Mr Oscar Wilde (Serpents Tail)
• Nietzsche, Basic Writings of Nietzsche, trans. and ed. Walter Kaufmann, Modern Library.
• Nietzsche, The Portable Nietzsche, trans. and ed. Walter Kaufmann, Penguin.
• Nietzsche, The Gay Science, trans. Walter Kaufmann, Vintage.
• Alexander Nehamas, Nietzsche: Life as Literature, Harvard UP.

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. Make sure to get the recommended edition(s)/translations: in particular, 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.)

For best results with JSTOR, either click on a JSTOR link while you're on-campus, or click through to the journal from the Marriott catalog, log in, and search JSTOR for the item.

Reading Assignments:

1. Aug. 20: Introduction. Optional prereading: David Wiggins, "Truth, Invention, and the Meaning of Life" (online reserve; this is a very difficult reading -- don't be daunted if you get lost midway thru). Nagel, "The Absurd" (JSTOR).


2. Aug. 22: Life as a Work of Art.
   Reading: Wilde, "The Decay of Lying"; Wilde, "Pen, Pencil and Poison" (in Wilde, Complete Works).

   Optional followon reading: Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction.

3. Aug. 27: The Knockoff Problem.
   Reading: Wilde, "The Critic as Artist".

   Optional followon reading (not on reserve): Alexander Nehamas, The Art of Living.

4. Aug. 29: Who Was Going to Make His Life Into Art?
   Reading: "The Burden of Itys" (CW 736ff; use Bartleby if your book hasn't arrived yet). Please come to class prepared to read it aloud and to paraphrase. Also, "The Truth of Masks" (CW 1060-1078).

   Optional followon: Richard Jenkyns, The Victorians and Ancient Greece.

Have a great Labor Day -- take The Picture of Dorian Gray to the beach!

5. Sept. 3: A Reductio in Advance?
   Reading: The Picture of Dorian Gray.

   Optional reading, while you're starting to think about writing your papers: George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language" (online reserve).

6. Sept. 5: Arguing Against Utilitarianism.
   Optional followon reading: J. S. Mill, Utilitarianism, ch. 2 (not on reserve).
7. Sept. 10: Arguing Against Aestheticism.
   Reading: Colin McGinn, "The Picture: Dorian Gray" (online reserve).

   Optional followon reading: J.-K. Huysmans, Against Nature.

8. Sept. 12: What Was Wilde's Persona?
   Reading: Bartlett, Who Was That Man?, chs. 1-3.

   Optional followon reading, for folks who want a more traditional bio: Richard Ellmann, Oscar Wilde.

9. Sept. 17: What Is Ornamental Drama?
   Reading: Wilde, "The Importance of Being Earnest".

   Optional reading, for your amusement: Saki, "Reginald at the Carlton" (online reserve)

10. Sept. 19: The Life and Letter.
    Reading: Wilde, "De Profundis"; "The Ballad of Reading Gaol".

    Optional reading: Gide, If It Die... (excerpts; online reserve). Warning: some readers may find the Gide material offensive. Wilde, "The Master" (CW p. 865).

11. Sept. 24: How to Change the Past.
    Reading: Bartlett, pp. 126-162.

    Optional reading: Ellmann, Oscar Wilde, chs. 17-20. Further reading, for students with way too much time on their hands: Charles Maturin, Melmoth the Wanderer (not on reserve).

12. Sept. 26: The Decadent Style.
    Reading: Wilde, Salome. (Please make sure to read the play; the Rambova version, which we will screen, is a silent movie, and is missing most of the dialogue.)

    Optional reading: Wilde, "The Portrait of Mr W. H."; Matthew Potolsky, The Decadent Republic of Letters, pp. 94-97, 123-130 (available shortly).

13. Oct. 1: Scandal Management.
    Reading: Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan.

    Optional reading: Wilde, An Ideal Husband.

14. Oct. 3: Jeff Wall Syndrome.
    Reading: Wilde, "The Fisherman and His Soul"; do a Google Images search on "Jeff Wall".

    Optional reading: Wilde, "The Young King," "The Happy Prince".

Have a great fall break -- take Nietzsche: Life as Literature to Vermont!

A model paper is now on reserve in the Philosophy Department.

15. Oct. 15: The Eternal Return.
    Reading: GS 341, BGE 56, Z III.2.2 ("On the Vision and the Riddle," beginning with "Stop, dwarf!"), Z III.13 ("The Convalescent") -- and here's a list of those abbreviations for Nietzsche's works. Nehamas, Nietzsche: Life as Literature (there will be a pop quiz).

    Optional reading: WP 1061-1066; Danto, "Eternal Recurrence" (online reserve); Soll, "Reflections on Recurrence" (online reserve shortly); Zuboff, "Nietzsche and Eternal Recurrence" (online reserve shortly); Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being (excerpt, online reserve); Maudemarie Clark, Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy (book available from Marriott), ch. 8 ("Eternal Recurrence").

16. Oct. 17: The Genealogy, Read Straight (I).
    Reading: GM Preface and Essay I.

    Optional 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 (available shortly) that discusses GM I.13. Robert Solomon, "Nietzsche ad Hominem" (online reserve), and "One Hundred Years of Ressentiment" (online reserve) set up the question of what 'genealogy' is; they're useful foils for papers on the topic.

Topics for the second paper have been distributed. Make sure you have a copy.

17. Oct. 22: The Genealogy, Read Straight (II).
    Reading: GM Essay II. (Please pay special attention to GM II:2, 12-13.) Review D 44, 95 (these sections of Daybreak are on two handouts distributed in the sessions following the fall break). Lanier Anderson, "Nietzschean Autonomy and the Meaning of the 'Sovereign Individual'". Review Nehamas, NLL, pp. 100-113.

    Optional reading: Raymond Geuss, "Nietzsche and Genealogy" (another paper that raises the question of what 'genealogy' is, and a useful foil for papers on the topic; online reserve).

    Further reading, for the curious: Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process, tries to answer Nietzsche's question, of how we became "tame animals", by looking at hundreds-of-years-old etiquette books. Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization, shows Foucault executing a genealogy (of insane asylums), as he understands the method; it's also meant to be a criticism of his master.

18. Oct. 24: The Genealogy, Read Straight (III) -- and Pushback to the Straight Reading.
    Reading: GM Essay III. (Please review GM I:13-14.)

    Optional reading: Ken Gemes, "We Remain of Necessity Strangers to Ourselves" (online reserve).

19. Oct. 29: Anti-Atomism... and Complaints about Foucauldian Genealogy.
    Reading: BGE Part I (please pay close attention to BGE 11-12, 14, 16-17, 19, 20), plus BGE 39, 268 (but you may want to read straight through, as much of the early stretches of BGE as you have time for, so that you have a sense of the context). GS 110-112, 121, 354. Alasdair MacIntyre, "Genealogies and Subversions" (this is ch. 2 of his Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry; online reserve).

    Followon reading for the incredibly scholarly: Lange, History of Materialism (not on reserve, but available from Marriott).

20. Oct. 31: Who Are the Philosophers of Future? Paying Attention to the Elephant in the Room.
    Reading: BGE 42-43, 197-198, 197f, Parts VI-VIII, esp. 203, 210-213; Nehamas, "Who Are 'The Philosophers of the Future'? A Reading of Beyond Good and Evil" (online reserve).

    Optional reading: Louise Pedersen, "Nietzsche's Misogyny: A Methodological Illustration of Value Creation" (model paper, on reserve in the Philosophy Department).

SECOND PAPERS DUE NOV 1

21. Nov. 5: Taking Nietzsche for a Drive!
    Reading: Katsafanas, "Nietzsche's Philosophical Psychology" (online reserve). Anderson, "What Is a Nietzschean Self?" (online reserve)

    Optional reading: Nehamas, "The Postulated Author" (JSTOR link -- you need to be on campus).
    

22. Nov. 7: Taking Responsibility for Your Self.
    Reading: BGE 223-224, 231-239, 240-251, plus Maudemarie Clark, "Nietzsche's Misogyny" (online reserve), GS 348. Review Lanier Anderson, "Nietzschean Autonomy and the Meaning of the 'Sovereign Individual'".

    Optional reading: Foucault, "What Is an Author?" (online reserve). Lanier Anderson and Joshua Landy, "Philosophy as Self-Fashioning: Alexander Nehamas's Art of Living" (available shortly).

Nov. 8: Lanier Anderson will be speaking in the Philosophy Department Colloquium, 2:30-4:30, in the Tanner Library.

23. Nov. 12: Reading Zarathustra Straight.
    Reading: Z Preface, Parts I and II, GS 360. For today, please pay close attention to Z I.1, I.3, I.4, I.12, I.15, I.17 (the table of contents at Portable Nietzsche pp. 112-114 will save you counting off the sections).

    Please come to class prepared to briefly describe a value you would like to invent.

    Optional reading, for your amusement: Sharon Wahl, "I Also Dated Zarathustra" (online reserve).

24. Nov. 14: How to Redeem a Coke Can.
    Reading: For today, 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); Luke Ludlow, "Adding Weight to the Unbearable Lightness of Being" (model paper, on reserve in the Philosophy Department).

Topics for the final paper have been handed out -- make sure you have a copy!

25. Nov. 19: Realism and Nihilism.
    Reading: Gay Science 1, 5, 7, 8, 11, 13-15, 34,39, 57, 76, 78, 91, 107, 290, 299, 335, 352, 354, 360, 374; La Rochefoucauld, Reflections; it's short, and you can really just read the whole thing, but you only need nos. 220-279. Pippin, "What Is a Gay Science?" (online reserve). Review Nehamas, NLL ch. 6 ("How One Becomes What One Is").

    Optional reading: GS 155-275. Anthony Cross, "Frenemies: Nietzsche on the Nature and Value of Friendship" (on reserve in the Philosophy Department).

26. Nov. 21: Who Was Nietzsche's Convalescent?
    Reading: GS Preface; BGE Preface; Z Parts III-IV. Williams, "Nietzsche's Minimalist Moral Psychology" (online reserve).

    Optional further reading (for the very ambitious): Stendhal, On Love; Denis de Rougemont, Love in the Western World.

27. Nov. 26: Who Was Nietzsche's Psychologist?
    Reading: Twilight of the Idols (you can count off the contents on p. 464), Preface; 2 ("The Problem of Socrates"); 4 ("How the 'True World' Finally Became a Fable"); 5:5 (this is in "Morality as Anti-Nature"); 6 ("The Four Great Errors"); 8:6 (this is in "What the Germans Lack"); 9:1-26 (this is in "Skirmishes of an Untimely Man"); 10:2 (in "What I Owe to the Ancients); plus The Case of Wagner 7.

    Optional reading: TI 1 ("Maxims and Arrows"); Rudolph Binion, Frau Lou: Nietzsche's Wayward Disciple (excerpt, on reserve in the Philosophy Department).

Happy Thanksgiving -- read Ecce Homo between courses!

28. Dec. 3: Decadence.
    Reading: Ecce Homo.

    Optional reading: Leonard Sax, "What was the Cause of Nietzsche's Dementia?" (online reserve).

29. Dec. 5: The Return of the Eternal Return!
    No new reading.