Reading Materials
New Works
OF SPECIAL NOTE
Professor Alan Rosenberg, a member of the NC board of advisors, believes that Suffering, Politics, Power is an extraordinary work, not only as a genealogical account of how we have come to understand suffering in the present, but also for locating Nietzsche within that genealogy as the thinker who generated a counter notion to the one we currenlty take for granted. It is surprising to Rosenberg that the book has received so little attention within the world of Nietzsche scholarship. He thinks that might be due to its title. He recommends very strongly that this trend be reversed.
Suffering, Politics, Power:
A Genealogy in Modern Political Theory
Cynthia Halpern
State University of New York Press, 2002
Suffering, Politics, Power argues that human suffering on a global scale constitutes the most urgent and least understood question of contemporary politics and political theory. In the modern age, the experience of suffering is primarily a political problem, constructed out of crucial, conflicting perspectives. The book draws on a genealogy of suffering through the conflicting perspectives of four major political theorists: Martin Luther, Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Friedrich Nietzsche. Although supplying contradictory accounts of the nature of suffering and human response to it, these theorists, when examined together, provide a historical foundation for the political structures of our time and a trajectory for the problematic of suffering which defies all limits. This book works to foster a contemporary political response to suffering, addressing the techniques of its production and representation and the dilemmas of ascertaining causes and responsibilities.
"Rich in its interpretation and crucial in its relevance to modern political philosophy, Suffering, Politics, Power not only illuminates the thought of modernity, but at the same time, offers the promise of transcending the impasse between modernity and postmodernity. Cynthia Halpern repeatedly breaks new ground with her obviously immense talent, insight, and originality. She reinterprets modernity's past and moves forward with courage, conviction, and, above all, with an inspiring voice." - Alkis Kontos, University of Toronto
About the Author:
Cynthia Halpern is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Swarthmore College.
| page
up |
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Friedrich Nietzsche, translated by Graham Parkes Oxford University Press - World's Classics Series.
Thus
Spoke Zarathustra is a masterpiece of literature as well as
philosophy. It was Nietzsche's own favorite and has proved
to be his most popular. In this book he addresses the problem
of how to live a fulfilling life in a world without meaning,
in the aftermath of "the death of God." His solution lies
in the idea of eternal recurrence, which he calls "the highest
formula of affirmation that can ever be attained." A successful
engagement with this profoundly Dionysian idea enables us
to choose clearly among the myriad possibilities that existence
offers, and thereby to affirm every moment of our lives with
others on this "sacred" earth.
Graham Parkes' new translation is more accurate than previous versions, and is the first to retain the musicality of the original, by paying
attention to the rhythms and cadences of the German. His introduction examines the work's three most important philosophical ideas and for
the first time annotates the abundance of allusions to the Bible and other classic texts with which Nietzsche's masterpiece is in conversation.
About the Translator:
Graham Parkes is the author of Composing the Soul: Reaches of Nietzsche's Psychology (Chicago, 1994), and the editor of Nietzsche and Asian Thought (Chicago, 1991). He is joint editor, with Steve Odin, of The Blackwell Source Book on Japanese Philosophy (2005).
[Please, check our
book review section: "Thus Spoke Zarathustra Translated by Graham Parkes" reviewed By
Horst Hutter. The whole book review is also available for
download as 
Adobe Acrobat PDF format.]
| page
up |
Nietzsche & The Fate of Art
Philip Pothen
Ashgate, 2004
Challenging the accepted orthodoxy on Nietzsche's views on art,
this book seeks both to challenge and to establish a new set of concerns as far as discourses on Nietzsche's thoughts on aesthetics
are concerned, whilst at the same time using such insights to illuminate more central concerns of Nietzsche scholarship,
such as the will to power, the illusion/truth question, the eternal return, the death of God, tragedy, Wagner.
Following the development of Nietzsche's
thoughts on art from his earliest writings to his last, Pothen counters traditionally accepted interpretations by suggesting a need to recognize the deep
suspicion and at times hostility that Nietzsche displays towards art and the artist throughout his text by emphasizing the philosophical arguments underlying
this deep suspicion, and by viewing this tendency as something deeply connected to the other areas of his thought. Readers with interests in Nietzsche studies,
aesthetics, German philosophy, and the philosophy of music, will find this a particularly invaluable and distinctive contribution to Nietzsche scholarship.
Contents:
Introduction; Miracles, metaphors and The Birth of Tragedy;
Nietzsche, Hegel and the 'Death of Art'; Zarathustra the godless
and the monological work of art; The will to power and art;
Genealogy, disinterestedness and the judgment of taste; Decadence,
Wagner and the end of art; Conclusions: the fate of art; Appendix
: 'French Nietzsche's', madness and the work of art; Bibliography;
Index.
[Please, check our
book review section: "Nietzsche
& The Fate of Art By Philip Pothen" reviewed By
Nicholas Birns. The whole book review is also available for
download as Adobe Acrobat PDF format.]
| page
up |
Words in Blood, Like Flowers: Philosophy and Poetry, Music and Eros in Hölderlin, Nietzsche, Heidegger
Babette E. Babich
Forthcoming from State University of New York Press,
2005
Babette Babich is professor of philosophy at Fordham University and the recent recipient of a Fulbright Senior Scholarship. While in Germany studying at Humboldt University in Berlin and Bauhaus University in Weimar, Babich was working on her book, Words in Blood, Like Flowers: Philosophy and Poetry, Music and Eros in Hölderlin, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, to be published by State University of New York Press in 2005. She has also given lectures in Germany and France. Babich, whose most recent book is Habermas, Nietzsche, and Critical Theory (Humanity Books, 2004), has written dozens of scholarly articles and is the founder and current executive editor of the journal New Nietzsche Studies.
| page
up |
Freud and Nietzsche
Paul-Laurent Assoun
Continuum International Publishing Group,
2003
Many of the leading Freudian analysts, including in the early days, Jung, Adler, Reich and Rank, attempted to link the writings of Nietzsche with the clinical work of Freud. But what was Nietzsche to Freud--an intuitive anticipation, a precursor, a rival psychologist? Assoun moves beyond the seduction of these attractive analogues to a deeper analysis of the relation between these two figures.
About the Author:
Professor Assoun is an active historian of philosophy and has published widely on Freud, Marx and psychoanalysis.
| page
up |
Nietzsche and Paradox
Rogerio Miranda de Almeida, Translated by Mark S. Roberts
State University of New York Press,
2006
Translated from the French, this book analyzes the paradoxes that fundamentally characterize Nietzsche's philosophy and texts.
Newly translated into English, this book analyzes the paradoxical discourse that flows through and fundamentally characterizes Nietzsche's writings. Examining Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy; Human, All Too Human; Beyond Good and Evil; On the Genealogy of Morals; and The Antichrist; Rogério Miranda de Almeida patiently opens these texts to the multiplicity of truths that unfold through the process of continuous reinterpretation and reevaluation. Never formally defining the contradictions within Nietzsche's conception of metaphysics, religion, art, science, and philosophy, Miranda de Almeida acknowledges instead that the history of thought, and the development of Nietzsche's writings in particular, is an interplay of forces and drives, encroachment and surrender, construction and destruction, overcoming and transformation, lack and fulfillment, satisfaction and dissatisfaction, pleasure and displeasure, pain and delight. This book reveals the endless perspectives and truths that Nietzsche creates and transforms.
"Drawing on the broad tradition of the 'French Nietzsche,' this book offers a rich tapestry of reflections on the multiplicities still to be mined in Nietzsche's thought, including the aesthetics of art and appearance, on woman and dissimulation, as well as morality, religion, and, of course, paradox." - Babette E. Babich, author of Words in Blood, Like Flowers: Philosophy and Poetry, Music and Eros in Hölderlin, Nietzsche, and Heidegger.
"From texts prior to The Birth of Tragedy through the final works of 1888, Miranda de Almeida dramatically draws out the tensions, torsions, and the dynamics of Nietzsche's theoretical development. In remarkably clear terms, he explains how, for Nietzsche, the whole subsoil of concepts and values are orchestrated by drives and needs-whether they be fictive or real-and shows how this results in the unique character of his ever-changing appreciation of the cultural symbolic." - David B. Allison, author of Reading the New Nietzsche: The Birth of Tragedy, The Gay Science, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and On the Genealogy of Morals.
About the Author:
Rogério Miranda de Almeida is Professor of Philosophy at Saint Anselmo College and Visiting Professor of Theology at the Gregorian University and of Philosophy at Beda College, all in Rome, Italy. He is the author of Nietzsche e Freud: Eterno Retorno e Compulsăo ŕ Repetiçăo. Mark S. Roberts has translated and coedited several books, including (with Anna Alexander) High Culture: Reflections on Addiction and Modernity, also published by SUNY Press.
| page
up |
Friedrich Nietzsche on the Philosophy of Right and the State
Nikos Kazantzakis
State University of New York Press,
2006
First English translation of Nikos Kazantzakis's 1909 doctoral dissertation on Nietzsche.
This book represents the first English translation of Nikos Kazantzakis's 1909 dissertation on Friedrich Nietzsche's political and legal philosophy. Before Kazantzakis became one of the best-known modern Greek writers, he was an avid student of Nietzsche's thought, discovering Nietzsche while studying law in Paris from 1907 to 1909. This powerful assessment of Nietzsche's radical political thought is translated here from a restored and authentic recent edition of the original. Its deep insights are unencumbered by the encrustations that generations of Nietzsche's admirers and detractors have deposed on the original Nietzschean corpus. The book also offers a revealing glimpse into the formative stage of Kazantzakis's thought.
"Thanks to the efforts of the translator, Kazantzakis's bold, appreciative interpretation of Nietzsche is now available to Anglophone readers. While other figures from the period offered their thoughts on Nietzsche, none approaches the stature and genius of Kazantzakis. This book opens a unique window onto the European intellectual scene at the beginning of the twentieth century." - Daniel W. Conway, author of Nietzsche and the Political.
About the Author:
Nikos Kazantzakis (1883-1957) is the author of Zorba the Greek, The Last Temptation of Christ, and the modern Greek epic Odyssey. Odysseus Makridis is Assistant Professor in Philosophy and the Humanities at Fairleigh Dickinson University and the translator of Letters and Sayings of Epicurus.
| page
up |
Nietzsche and Embodiment
Discerning Bodies and Non-dualism
Kristen Brown
State University of New York Press,
2006
Examines the significance of Nietzsche's writings for contemporary debates about embodiment.
In Nietzsche and Embodiment Kristen Brown reveals the smartness of bodies, challenging the traditional view in the West that bodies are separate from and morally inferior to minds. Drawing inspiration from Nietzsche, Brown vividly describes why the interdependence of mind and body matters, both in Nietzsche's writings and for contemporary debates (non-dualism theory, Merleau-Ponty criticism, and metaphor studies), activities (spinal cord research and fasting), and specific human experiences (menses, trauma, and guilt). Brown's theories about the dynamic relationship between body and mind provide new possibilities for self-understanding and experience.
"I applaud the author's successful attempts to connect philosophy to the quotidian. From her account of her fasting friend, Doug, to the more extensive discussions of curry and (pre)menses, Brown connects abstract philosophy to life-which to my mind is exactly what Nietzsche is trying to do." - Brian Domino, Miami University
"This work is not only important for its nuanced interpretations of Heraclitus, Nietzsche, and Merleau-Ponty, but also for its insights into the problem of how interpretation arises. It will be read for both its exegesis and its original insights." - James J. Winchester, author of Nietzsche's Aesthetic Turn: Reading Nietzsche after Heidegger, Deleuze, Derrida.
About the Author:
Kristen Brown is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Millsaps College.
| page
up |
This book explores the imaginative possibilities for philosophy created by Nietzsche's sustained reflection on the phenomenon of ecstasy. From The Birth of Tragedy to his experimental 'physiology of art,' Nietzsche examines the aesthetic, erotic, and sacred dimensions of rapture, hinting at how an ecstatic philosophy is realized in his elusive doctrine of Eternal Return. Jill Marsden pursues the implications of this legacy for contemporary Continental thought via analyses of such voyages in ecstasy as those of Kant, Schopenhauer, Schreber, and Bataille. 
Nietzsche uses images of dance throughout his work to represent the process and the fruits of his "revaluation of all values." American modern dancers Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham were inspired by his work as they created their respective visions for what dance can and should be. This book examines the relationships among these three figures, arguing that the techniques of dance practice, choreography, and performances developed by Duncan and Graham critically advance Nietzsche's revaluation of Christian values. 
A concise and historicized analysis of the development of Nietzsche's thought on the subject of tragedy. 
Power is conventionally regarded as being held by social institutions. We are taught to believe that it is these social structures that determine the environment and circumstances of individual lives. In I Am Dynamite, the anthropologist Nigel Rappaport argues for a different view. Focusing on the lives and works of the writer and Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi, refugee and engineer Ben Glaser, Israeli ceramicist and immigrant Rachel Siblerstein, artist Stanley Spencer, and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, he shows how we can have the capacity and inclination to formulate 'life projects'. It is in the pursuit of these life projects, that is, making our life our work, that we can avoid the structures of ideology and institution.
This work of comparative philosophy envisions a cosmological whole that celebrates difference.
The relevance of Nietzsche's work to legal studies has, in recent years, been increasingly recognized by legal scholars, political theorists, cultural theorists and feminists. Best known for his radical critique of Judeo Christian morality (which would, in itself, warrant describing him as a legal thinker), Nietzsche developed insights about the history and the purpose of punishment, the codification of morals and laws, and the possibilities for ethical and legal creativity in the age following the death of God. However, there has yet to be a book-length study (at least in the English language) devoted to the subject of Nietzsche and law.
In his first book, The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche observes that Greek tragedy gathered people together as a community in the sight of their gods, and argues that modernity can be rescued from 'nihilism' only through the revival of such a festival. This is commonly thought to be a view which did not survive the termination of Nietzsche's early Wagnerianism, but Julian Young argues, on the basis of an examination of all of Nietzsche's published works, that his religious communitarianism in fact persists through all his writings. What follows, it is argued, is that the mature Nietzsche is neither an 'atheist', an 'individualist', nor an 'immoralist': he is a German philosopher belonging to a German tradition of conservative communitarianism - though to claim him as a proto-Nazi is radically mistaken. This important reassessment will be of interest to all Nietzsche scholars and to a wide range of readers in German philosophy.