By re-examining Nietzsche's notion of the “eternal-feminine” and his views on women and feminism, this volume offers new perspectives on some of his key ideas. It brings together a diverse group of scholars to critically engage with Nietzsche's use of late-19th-century gender stereotypes and the ways in which they served his critique of values, including his use of “woman” as a trope for truth. Among other subjects, the contributors consider the role of psychology in Nietzsche's thought, his concern with style, self-creation, and advocacy of perfectionism, his views on romantic love and marriage, and his aim of revaluing all values to instigate a distant philosophy of the future. They investigate parallels between Nietzsche's thought and Shaktism, his relation to Goethe and Stendahl, and his influence on Beauvoir, Butler, and Dohm. With the inclusion of two seminal essays on Nietzsche and women by Lawrence J. Hatab and Kelly Oliver, the volume also illustrates some of the ways in which scholarship on these subjects has evolved over the last four decades. Providing fresh insights into these inter-related subjects, Nietzsche on Women and the Eternal-Feminine highlights the enduring relevance of his thought and its still-underappreciated potential for re-thinking both the bases for and aims of feminism and other emancipatory movements.

By re-examining Nietzsche's notion of the “eternal-feminine” and his views on women and feminism, this volume offers new perspectives on some of his key ideas. It brings together a diverse group of scholars to critically engage with Nietzsche's use of late-19th-century gender stereotypes and the ways in which they served his critique of values, including his use of “woman” as a trope for truth. Among other subjects, the contributors consider the role of psychology in Nietzsche's thought, his concern with style, self-creation, and advocacy of perfectionism, his views on romantic love and marriage, and his aim of revaluing all values to instigate a distant philosophy of the future. They investigate parallels between Nietzsche's thought and Shaktism, his relation to Goethe and Stendahl, and his influence on Beauvoir, Butler, and Dohm. With the inclusion of two seminal essays on Nietzsche and women by Lawrence J. Hatab and Kelly Oliver, the volume also illustrates some of the ways in which scholarship on these subjects has evolved over the last four decades. Providing fresh insights into these inter-related subjects, Nietzsche on Women and the Eternal-Feminine highlights the enduring relevance of his thought and its still-underappreciated potential for re-thinking both the bases for and aims of feminism and other emancipatory movements.

In this innovative and wide-ranging volume, Peter Burgard has brought together new studies by outstanding scholars in philosophy, feminism, comparative literature, and German studies.

Although Nietzsche has been considered by some critics to be a misogynist for his treatment of woman, women, and the feminine, Frances Nesbitt Oppel offers a radical reinterpretation of the philosopher's ideas on sex, gender, and sexuality. In Nietzsche on Gender: Beyond Man and Woman, she argues that a closer reading of Nietzsche's texts and rhetorical style (especially his use of metaphor and irony), as well as his letters and notes, shows that he was strategically and deliberately dismantling dualistic thinking in general, not only the logical hierarchies of western thought (God/human, heaven/earth, mind/body, reason/emotion, ethos/pathos) but also the assumed gender opposition of man/woman. In the process, she pulls the rug out from under the accusation of his alleged misogyny. Oppel's is the first study to combine recent speculations in gender study and queer theory with an in-depth analysis of Nietzsche's texts. This approach enables her to break through the impasse in feminist studies that has stalled for so long on the question of his misogyny, to redirect attention to the importance he gives to human creativity and self-fashioning rather than convention, and to gesture toward a future human sexuality beyond rivalry and resentment in favor of a sensual materialism in relationship with others and the earth. Oppel concludes that for Nietzsche, breaking the gender barrier liberates human beings as individuals and as a species to love themselves, each other, and their earthly home as they choose. By emphasizing the physical and material stuff of human existence (bodies and the earth), she says, Nietzsche reclaims for all humanity concepts that have been traditionally associated with "woman" and the feminine. No longer seen as a strong masculine hero, Nietzsche's "superman" becomes a supreme human achievement: the complete acceptance of time, change, and mortality in which human beings will possess the best characteristics of each gender in themselves. Nietzsche on Gender should be equally engaging for readers interested in Nietzsche in particular and in sexual politics and in philosophy and literature more generally.

Creativity and madness, sparked by the intrusion of unconscious symbolism, arised from the same feminine depths--what Jung, following Goethe, called the realm of the Mothers. Which one triumphs depends on the strength of the ego under the onslaught of unconscious contents. In this book the author charts the developmental course of that ego, and its archetypal aspects. She has written a pyschobiography that ventures into the realm of the Mothers, so that the creativity and madness of Friedrich Nietzsche can be better understood. Ecce Mulier begins with a presentation of the existential factors and movements of Nietzsche's soul during his early life. The author discusses his childhood, adolescence, and early adult years--represented by his natal home, early childhood, boarding school, studies in Bonn and Leipzig, practice in Basel, and fundamental and pivotal interpersonal relationships. She focuses particularly on the subjective life of that period, represented by Nietzsche's early poems, reflections in his first autobiographical works, personal letters and initial writings, as well as the symbols of his dreams and hallucinations as reported by Nietzsche himself. Dr. Ostfeld de Bendayan continues with Nietzsche's phase as a solitary wanderer, marked by the crucial breakup with Wagner and giving up of his professorship in Basel at the end of the 1870s. Here, she reveals the "human, all too human" man in his relationship with the feminine, using his experiences during continuous journeys and his psychological approach to the imagery found in Nietzsche's most significant creative works. Finally, the author offers evidence of the enactment of the Dionysus and Ariadne myth and the way Nietzsche is consumed eventually by living his own myth unconsciously: "In such instances, the personal domain of choice and conscious differentiation has been lost, thus producing a life lived out on an archetypal and not human level. In a fascinating yet often tragic way, the fate of individuals caught in such transpersonal coupling often parallel the eternal dramas described by myths of these archetypal figures." (Michael Conforti, Field, Form, and Fate) By tracing the manifestations of this myth throughout Nietzsche's life and work, Dr. Ostfeld de Bendayan offers a unique look at one of the most important thinkers of modern Western philosophy and a valuable addition to Jungian literature.

Creativity and madness, sparked by the intrusion of unconscious symbolism, arised from the same feminine depths--what Jung, following Goethe, called the realm of the Mothers. Which one triumphs depends on the strength of the ego under the onslaught of unconscious contents. In this book the author charts the developmental course of that ego, and its archetypal aspects. She has written a pyschobiography that ventures into the realm of the Mothers, so that the creativity and madness of Friedrich Nietzsche can be better understood. Ecce Mulier begins with a presentation of the existential factors and movements of Nietzsche's soul during his early life. The author discusses his childhood, adolescence, and early adult years--represented by his natal home, early childhood, boarding school, studies in Bonn and Leipzig, practice in Basel, and fundamental and pivotal interpersonal relationships. She focuses particularly on the subjective life of that period, represented by Nietzsche's early poems, reflections in his first autobiographical works, personal letters and initial writings, as well as the symbols of his dreams and hallucinations as reported by Nietzsche himself. Dr. Ostfeld de Bendayan continues with Nietzsche's phase as a solitary wanderer, marked by the crucial breakup with Wagner and giving up of his professorship in Basel at the end of the 1870s. Here, she reveals the "human, all too human" man in his relationship with the feminine, using his experiences during continuous journeys and his psychological approach to the imagery found in Nietzsche's most significant creative works. Finally, the author offers evidence of the enactment of the Dionysus and Ariadne myth and the way Nietzsche is consumed eventually by living his own myth unconsciously: "In such instances, the personal domain of choice and conscious differentiation has been lost, thus producing a life lived out on an archetypal and not human level. In a fascinating yet often tragic way, the fate of individuals caught in such transpersonal coupling often parallel the eternal dramas described by myths of these archetypal figures." (Michael Conforti, Field, Form, and Fate) By tracing the manifestations of this myth throughout Nietzsche's life and work, Dr. Ostfeld de Bendayan offers a unique look at one of the most important thinkers of modern Western philosophy and a valuable addition to Jungian literature.

Are you visiting women? Do not forget your whip!' 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra 'the democratic movement is...a form assumed by man in decay' Beyond Good and Evil Nietzsche's views on women and politics have long been the most embarrassing aspects of his thought. Why then has the work of Nietzsche aroused so much interest in recent years from feminist theorists and political philosophers? In answer, this collection comprises twelve outsanding essays on Mietzsche 's work to current debates in feminist and political theory, It is the first to focus on the way in which Nietzche has become an essential point of reference for postmodern ehtical and political thought.