COMPLIT 363: Martin Heidegger: Off the Beaten Track (COMPLIT 266, GERMAN 276)

Course Description

Martin Heidegger is one of the most influential and contested philosophers of the modern era. This seminar will offer close readings of Heidegger's first book following the Second World War: Martin Heidegger: Off the Beaten Track (Holzwege). We will discuss Heidegger's aesthetic theory ("The Origin of the Work of Art"), his reaction to Hegel's notion of experience, Nietzsche's dictum "God is dead," and Heidegger's unique understanding of poetry, poetics and poetic thinking in "Why Poets?" The seminar will also explore how some of Heidegger's ideas have left a lasting mark in contemporary discussions regarding truth, experience, art, and literature.