This seminar provides an intensive if unorthodox encounter with a figure often identified with the origins not only of modern German language and nation but of modern subjectivity itself — namely, Martin Luther. Shuttling back and forth between readings of Luther’s own texts and those of his most significant critics and inheritors — among whom number Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Rosenzweig, and Freud — we’ll attempt to come to terms with Luther’s long shadow over German letters. Topics will thus include: language, nation, and translation; freedom, conscience, and subjectivity; reformation and revolution; sexuality, obscenity, and hate-speech.
