This course examines the moral challenge of what it means to be ethical after Auschwitz. Using Hannah Arendt’s analysis of the concentration camp as a touchstone, it includes texts by Primo Levi, Victor Klemperer, Kant, Giorgio Agamben, Karl Jaspers, and Emmanuel Levinas, as well as poems by Nelly Sachs and Paul Celan, and the film Son of Saul. The course is appropriate for language students at the 200-level, who will read a subsection of texts in the original German. Course taught in English. Students electing to take the German Studies section will complete some reading in the original German and may complete some writing, and discussion assignments in German. May be elected as Philosophy 215. Open to first-years, sophomores, and juniors; seniors by consent of instructor only.
German 106 or equivalent level of proficiency; or consent of instructor.