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The first premise of this seminar is that Nietzsche's works are not simply expositions of ideas. Rather, they testify to an effort to overcome nihilism, that is, to make a life of writing worth living by turning it into an enthralling experiment in which basic tenets of Western culture are pitted against themselves. Our second premise is that this project cannot be adequately understood without attention paid to the peculiarly German form of cultural crisis that confronted the young Nietzsche, the characteristically German turn to Greek antiquity that defined his beginnings, and the grand project of national renewal to which he dedicated his energies during his early alliance with Wagner–the encounter with whom Nietzsche continued to view as the most important event of his life even after he repudiated Wagner. The selection of works we discuss will therefore be bookended on one end by The Birth of Tragedy and a few other early writings, and on the other end by Nietzsche's final settling of scores with Wagner. A recurrent theme will be the shifting relation between aesthetic delight and the will to truth in Nietzsche's writings.