Reading Nietzsche's Zarathustra

Hannes Schumacher

Reading Nietzsche’s Zarathustra

With Hannes Schumacher

“Forgive me, old friend, for this little scrap of a note — but I want to set down good news on it. Since last Friday Thus Spoke Zarathustra has been completely finished — and I am in the midst of copying it out. The whole work thus came into being over the course of exactly one year: in a stricter sense, even over the span of 3 × 2 weeks. — These last two weeks have been the happiest of my life: never have I sailed with such sails upon such a sea; and the tremendous exuberance of this whole seafaring tale, which has lasted as long as you have known me, since 1870, has now reached its peak.” — Friedrich Nietzsche to Franz Overbeck, 25 January 1884

GROUP DESCRIPTION

Thus Spoke Zarathustra is, arguably, Friedrich Nietzsche’s magnum opus. But does anybody know with certainty what this book “for All and None” is actually about? It is a book of great passions and of great contempt, a book of April weather and of the high noon of life; it is a book about the sun, about the open sky, about the highest mountains and the deepest sea, a book about a camel, a lion and a child, about an eagle and a snake; it is a book about a tightrope walker and the dwarf of gravity, about the overman and the last man, who blinks.

Or is it a book about the death of God, about old and new tablets, the eternal return, an alchemical wedding of light and darkness with Zarathustra as the guest of guests? Is it a counter-gospel aiming to restore, in a fresh and golden light, the sacredness of the earth? In such a case, may we extract from it something like a Nietzschean religiosity, or a Nietzschean ethics? Or is Nietzsche’s Zarathustra—after all—but an abundant celebration of overall existence, a dance that has no steps, a cosmic song shouting an eternal “yes!” into the flux of life? Is Zarathustra not a dancer?

These and other questions we are going to address in this reading group on Nietzsche’s Zarathustra. In any case, we shouldn’t rush to “interpret” this living riddle hastily. We’ll throw all our baggage overboard and—fresh like a newborn—we’ll read it line by line.

GROUP MATERIALS

In this reading group, we’ll read Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, translated by Walter Kaufmann. A PDF of the book, along with the German critical edition, will be provided on registration. No previous knowledge or preparation is required. We will read everything together. You can jump in at any time.

Facilitator: Having lived and studied all around the world, Hannes Schumacher works at the threshold between philosophy and art. He has worked intensively on Hegel and Deleuze, and he has also published widely on Nishida, Nāgārjuna, chaos theory, global mysticism, and contemporary art. Hannes is the founder of the Berlin-based publisher Freigeist Verlag and co-founder of the grassroots art space Chaosmos ∞ in Athens, Greece. He has facilitated the following courses and groups at Incite Seminars: “Nishida Kitarō: The Logic of Place and the Religious Worldview”; “Who’s Afraid of Hegel: Introduction to G. W. F. Hegel’s Science of Logic”; “Chaos Research Group”; “Reading After Finitude by Quentin Meillassoux”; “Deleuze & Guattari: What is Philosophy?”; “Plato’s chôra through the lens of Derrida”; and “Anarchia and Archai: Reimagining the Pre-Socratics” (with Carlos A. Segovia).