The course will examine the career of Friedrich Nietzsche as the pivotal figure in German intellectual and literary life at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. We will map Nietzsche's major styles and concepts from Geburt der Tragodie through Gotzendammerung in the context of German society from the creation of the Second Empire in 1871 to the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Readings in German. Requirements: active class participation, one seminar presentation, one 12- to 15-page paper.