GRMN 248-401 (COML 268 / PHIL 067 / RELS 238)
Nietzsche's Modernity

Eric Jarosinski profile
ejar@sas.upenn.edu

MW 2 - 3:30 pm

All readings and lectures in English.


"Nietzsche's Modernity and the Death of God"

“God is dead.” This famous, all too famous death sentence, issued by the 19th-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, also signaled the genesis of a radical challenge to traditional notions of morality, cultural life, and the structure of society as a whole. In this course we will examine both the“modernity” of Nietzsche’s thought and the ways in which his ideas have helped to define the very concept of Modernity (and, arguably, Postmodernity) itself. In exploring the origin and evolution of Nietzsche’s key concepts, we will
trace the ways in which his work has been variously revered or refuted, championed or co-opted, for more than a century. We will survey his broad influence on everything from philosophy and literature to music and art, theater and psychology, history and cultural theory, politics and popular culture. Further, we will ask how his ideas continue to challenge us today, though perhaps in unexpected ways. As we will see, Nietzsche wanted to teach us“how to philosophize with a hammer.” This will be our task throughout the course
as we take his work into hand as a potentially powerful tool for thought. Ultimately, we will ask not only if it can still deliver formidable blows, but how we might wield it most skillfully, guided by a spirit of challenge, sedulous reading, and critical precision. Readings will draw on the work of several key cultural and historical figures, including Rainer Maria Rilke, Hermann Hesse, and Thomas Mann; Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung; Jean-Paul Sartre, Hannah Arendt, and Martin Heidegger; Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini; Jacques
Derrida and Michel Foucault; Richard Nixon and Jerry Seinfeld.

 

updated 03-2009