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Spring, 2005

Instructor: Tom Trelogan
Office: Smith House (1007 20th St.)
Telephone: 351–1561
Office Hours: 11:15 a.m.–12:05 p.m. MWF and by appointment
E-mail: tom.trelogan@unco.edu

Course Objectives

This course is designed to serve as an introduction, in considerable depth, to the thought of Friedrich Nietzsche. We’ll begin with a brief look at the philosophical setting of his thought with an eye, especially, to understanding the impact on philosophy in the nineteenth century in Germany of the thought of Immanuel Kant and Arthur Schopenhauer, proceed to a reading of Nietzsche’s self-assessment, Ecce Homo, accompanied by a look at a contemporary account of the history of Nietzsche interpretation, and then work our way through a number of Nietzsche’s works—The Birth of Tragedy, The Gay Science, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, The Genealogy of Morals, The Twilight of the Idols, and The Antichrist—aided by a look at pieces in David B. Allison’s excellent anthology of relatively recent scholarship on Nietzsche and by a reading of his new book on Nietzsche, Reading the New Nietzsche.

Texts

• Allison, David B, ed. The New Nietzsche: Contemporary Styles of Interpretation. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1985. (ISBN: 0262510340)
• ______. Reading the New Nietzsche. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2001. (ISBN: 0847689808)
• Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Birth of Tragedy and The Case of Wagner. Walter Kaufmann, trans. New York: Vintage Books USA, 1967. (ISBN: 0394703693)
• ______. The Gay Science. Walter Kaufmann, trans. New York: Vintage Books USA, 1974. (ISBN: 0394719859)
• ______. On the Genealogy of Morals/Ecce Homo. Walter Kaufmann, ed.; Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale, trans. New York: Vintage Books USA, 1989. (ISBN: 0679724621)
• ______. The Portable Nietzsche. (Contains, among other things, translations of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the Twilight of the Idols, and The Antichrist.) Walter Kaufmann, ed. and trans. New York: Penguin Books, 1977. (ISBN: 0140150625)

Course Requirements and Grades

E-Mail Account:

You’ll need to have an e-mail account. If you don’t have one already, you’ll need to arrange to get one by Wednesday. You can get a UNC account in any of the computer labs on campus or at Bear Logic, the computer store in the University Center. Accounts with other national or local ISPs (AOL, CompuServ, Juno, Hotmail, CTOS, etc.) are perfectly acceptable as well.

Reading Assignments:

You’ll find a general indication of the reading assignments in the course outline at the end of the syllabus. More specific assignments will be announced in class and posted on the class Web site as well. Make sure you have these done on time. Expect to spend time on the readings. They’re difficult, challenging, serious texts that require prolonged study and reflection, not presentations of predigested material written for people in a hurry.

Quizzes:

Brief, unannounced quizzes will be given on the assigned readings from time to time. Under no circumstances may missed quizzes be made up.

Class Participation and Contributions to the Class’s Online Forum:

On most days, meetings of the course will involve a combination of lecture and discussion, and you’re required both to attend class regularly and to involve yourself actively in class discussion. Contributions to the class’s online forum at http://www.unco.edu/philosophy/current/forums/—the main venue outside class for class discussion—can help, at to least some extent, to make up for any unavoidable absences and can serve to enhance your overall participation grade. Your participation grade will reflect both the quantity and the quality of your contributions to our discussions.

Essays:

You’ll be required to write two five to ten page essays, due on March 11 and the day scheduled for the final. You’ll get fuller descriptions of what I’ll be looking for in each of these essays well in advance of the dates on which they’ll be due.

The manual of style I expect you to use for the essays is Joseph Gibaldi, MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 6th Edition [New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 2003]. Copies are available at the Book Stop.

General Rules Regarding Submission of Work:

To receive credit for the course, you must submit both of the required essays. Zeros will be recorded for missed quizzes.

Overall Determination of Grades:

Summing up, your overall grade will be determined as follows: quizzes, 10%; essays, 30% each; class participation, 30%.

Penalty for Cheating or Plagiarism:

The penalty for cheating on the quizzes or for plagiarism (i.e., for copying either the ideas or the words of another without appropriate attribution) in your newsgroup submissions, your essays, or your final exam will be denial of credit for the entire course.

Outline of Course Content

1. Nietzsche’s Immediate Philosophical Predecessors
   1. Kant and German Idealism
   2. Schopenhauer
2. Nietzsche—the Man, the Writer, the Thinker
   1. Ecce Homo
   2. The Introduction to Reading the New Nietzsche (RNN)
3. Specific Texts
   1. The Birth of Tragedy—and RNN, Chapter One
   2. The Gay Science—and RNN, Chapter Two
   3. Thus Spoke Zarathustra—and RNN, Chapter Three
   4. Genealogy of Morals—and RNN, Chapter Four
   5. The Twilight of the Idols
   6. The Antichrist
4. The Heritage of Nietzsche
   1. Philosophy after Nietzsche
   2. Philosophy in the Light of Nietzsche

Accommodations for Students with Disabilities

Students who believe that they may need accommodations in this class are encouraged to contact Disability Support Services by dropping by the office in Harrison Hall 159A or by phoning the office at (970) 351-2289 as soon as possible to ensure that accommodations can be arranged in a timely way.