"God is dead"---so the infamous declaration of the nineteenth century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. And this was not all the bad news. God had long been dead, Nietzsche argued, and no one was prepared for the consequences once this truth became fully known. This course examines the literature, philosophy and art of this first "modernist" moment. Drawing on texts from both sides of the Atlantic, we will explore the broad transformation of religious, political and social thought in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Following Nietzsche´s line of questioning, we will ask (metaphorically) not just who or what killed God, but how European and American society reacted upon "hearing the news." We will look at what kinds of values and notions of meaning arose to replace God, and we will consider how these questions of the late nineteenth century have changed in the course of the twentieth.
- Manager: Eric Oberle