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This course introduces students to major figures and trends in German literature and thought from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. We will pay particular attention to the evolution of German political thought from the Protestant Reformation to the foundation of the German Federal Republic after WWII. How did the Protestant Reformation affect the understanding of the state, rights, civic institutions, and temporal authority in Germany? How did German Enlightenment thinkers conceive of ethics and politics? How do German writers define the nation, community, and the people? What is the link between romanticism and nationalism? To what degree is political economy, as developed by Marx, a critical response to romanticism? What are the ties that bind as well as divide a community in this tradition? We will consider these questions through a careful reading of selected works by Luther, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Marx, Freud, Weber, and Arendt.