the most famous book i ever wrote was with rush limbaugh, the second 1i told you so which sold about 8 million copies. but my next book i haven't -- i am not looking at that. usually what happens with me as an author is i will get an inspiration one day and within six months i finished the book so i haven't had that moment of inspiration yet. >> so if people were interested in buying the tea party manifesto or other books to you have a web site they can go to? >> in addition to being in author i'm also a publisher, it's a book publishing entity. we have the highest percentage of "the new york times" best-seller of any publisher in america see you can get all of our books at wmd. >> joseph has been our guest on book tv of the conservative political action conference.

>> next on booktv jennifer talks about both the left and right of the united states. this is about an hour and 15 minutes. linus op east to welcome my friend, jennifer ratner-rosenhagen come to the new very deceiving. jennifer is the associate professor of history at the university of wisconsin madison. she earned her ph.d. in history at brandeis university and her b.a. from the university of rochester. prior to landing in madison, jennifer taught at the university of miami in the street where we were colleagues of so many years ago. jennifer took american legion a history of; and his ideas were just published by the university of chicago press. in the book jennifer examines how the philosophy he found a home in america. the writings about the death of god and the challenge to the universal truth of inspired

american thinkers. journalists, academics, philosophers, theologians, poets and others have drawn for inspiration that we learned an american. already it's been a nobody to help the readers think deeply and more historical about neitzsche and american intellectuals than we might have in the past. it's one of the great successes of her book. in a compelling prologue to the american neitzsche, jennifer ratner-rosenhagen recounts neitzsche's fer grant reading and beginning in the 1860's. she writes it was emmerson who first instructed neitzsche about philosophy of life. neitzsche was powerfully drawn to emmerson, she explained, because he understood what it

meant to travel imaginatively through time and space in order to find a thinker to think with. i know a few individuals who travel through time and space as imagined, as imaginatively or who are compelling fingers to think with as jennifer herself. so we are all in for a real treat this evening thinking with her. please join me in welcoming jennifer ratner-rosenhagen to the newberry. [applause] >> thank you for that wonderful introduction. thank you, the library and the bookstore for hosting tonight's event and think you'll -- think you all for coming out tonight. it's very fitting that i find myself in chicago talking because it was in chicago in the early 90's during my years

between undergraduate and graduate school the lead again to read his philosophy. i knew i wanted to go on to do graduate work in the u.s. intellectual history, but like many people interested in the ideas i was never the less drawn to the european thinkers, karl marx, as it met freud and most especially neitzsche. i moved on to graduate school and continued to find the top pretty intoxicating and i felt a little sheepish about my attraction to it. after all, had gone to graduate school to study american intellectual and cultural history. and so i felt compelled to turn back to my american thinkers ralph waldo emerson, margaret fuller, w.e.b. du bois, john, i thought it was time for me to find myself back on the american intellectual native ground. but in my effort to put neitzsche to the sight i can to discover how difficult it was going to be in that every american intellectual life

especially in the american academy, in higher education the philosophies featured prominently in monograph, journals and university courses in all fields of the humanities and social sciences. there wasn't a university library or major bookstore that didn't have the section. but even as i waded out from the intellectual world of the academy, i was repeatedly flailed in my efforts to move away to my america. even the most casual survey of american culture of the time needed unmistakeable that this 19th century german philosopher was a towering public intellectual and contemporary american life. he was everywhere. images of the imposing mustache on the coffee cup and t-shirts, his aphorisms from our bumper stickers, his freesias, his concept like slave and master

morality were studying the morning papers and advertisements. it could be found in the contemporary novels from tom wolfe to turnrow as well as the television shows and movies including komen barbieri and, blazing saddles, clueless, and i couldn't resist putting a few recent shows on and that includes the sopranos, the day after tomorrow, eternal sunshine of the spotless white and of little miss sunshine. neitzsche even made it off broadway and the 2000 broadway neitzsche along the way i would come to discover the neitzsche inspired food including neitzsche pops. there is a will to power bar which is the nutritional supplement of the superman, and for those of you that our week to power like myself and eat too many of them there is even a diet as advertised in the onion in the mid 2000, lets you eat

whatever you fear most and we even have a even inched altus doubled with at night. so there was a harmless figure of our material culture, but of course we also know that there is a menacing teenage one as well. right in the early years of the project, 16-years-old in mississippi exemplified the figure of the game grew disaffected young man who had the text in one hand and a gun or knife and the other and this of course became quite conventional as we move through the 1990's and into 2000 with the 1999 columbine high school massacre the 2001 double homicide in a college, professors and the home and more recently the shooting of congress, and gabrielle giffords and 18 by standards of the meet and greet and in arizona parking lot last january.

trying to move back to the american native ground and away from neitzsche going to politics was a bad idea i don't discover very quickly that neitzsche is there, to act. in his address to the joint session of congress on september 20 of the 2001 the first major address president george bush gave after the 9/11 attacks. he condemned to be condemned the terrorists for their will to power. but i can to see that neitzsche was not simply a figure of the right, but also a figure of the left or the center-left depending on your ankle of the vision and of course it was many years later that i would learn in an october 2008 interview that than candidate barack obama who was asked by "the new york times" about the literary influences would mean for frederick neitzsche as one of them. he'd come into contact while a student, an undergraduate at the

college. i could turn to popular music, and again, he was there as an inspiration. from performers of the diverse marilyn manson she named it and dedicated her 1998 song man from mars to him. he explained in an interview what the philosopher meant to her. quote, neitzsche was a hero especially he gets a bad rap he's very misunderstood, the maker of individuals and teacher of teachers and just in case you think that this was a curious luke come on your right home to light, turn on the radio to the top 40 station and he will very likely here kelly clarkson hit song stronger which the lyrics for stronger r neitzsche what doesn't kill me makes me

stronger, and i will sing it for you. and it's a flight rock isn't your then you can listen for kenya west also using neitzsche's maxim. so let's back up and get. what was clear from the outset is that neitzsche had the dominating presence in the 20th century american intellectual and cultural life and yet it was pretty easy for me as a defeat to a time to assume this must have been a relatively recent vintage to track this i thought even we could look at the bus like again to the moral dislocations of americans trying to come to terms with the horrors of the holocaust and the atomic bomb and the post-world war. its more recent than that maybe i can trace it to the temper of the 60's when americans coming of age struggle with the bank of ideologies of the cold war and bristled against the lingering conventions of their parents. and yet in my effort to reclaim my mind from more american

thinkers, i was spoiled again as i felt let me just move back in time and surely this will go away. instructed to take one more much effort before it started to take note of the curious neitzsche traces and american fall from earlier period. indeed in the very text i was reading while trying to get back to my american and native grounds, william james variety of religious experience with benedict pattern of culture, richard hofstadter paranoid style of politics, martin luther king jr.'s autobiography and david's lonely crowd all of them had engagements with neitzsche. ase neitzsche under every bed, not quite. although there are a lot under lots of beds, but in this effort to move back in time i was able to start to connect the dots and see how much neitzsche was cropping up in fact i was able to connect the dots all the way back to the turn of the last century when the interest in

neitzsche was so intense that observers could without hyperbole talk about a neitzsche vote. this was the term used in the beginning of the 20th century and as one commentator put it and he was right, quote, she will know the zeitgeist is near neitzsche. yet i couldn't help but ask the same question that commentators i was reading were asking themselves, and that is? what is the word of an antichristian, anti-democratic, antienlightenment thinkers doing in a culture like ours? and asking these questions, my project was born. why neitzsche and william america? so in the time that remains, but i would like to do is to offer some answers to these questions about neitzsche's philosophy has been doing in may and has done for 20th century culture in the

united states. my book examines neitzsche's longstanding impact on the 20th century american thought and culture. it examines how neitzsche's denial of the universal truth together with his sister and critiques of christian morality, enlightenment russian of the at the democracy have compelled generations of americans to question the religious ideals, the moral certainties and the space principles. i trees episodes in the history including to the and i just going to name a few the early 20th century christian commentators use of neitzsche's philosophy as a register of the soul of modern man under secularism. i look at early 20th century literary and political thinkers return to the nomadic intellectual life as an example of the perils and the promises of the freelance intellectual life the hope to inhabit themselves. i look at the debates about the rates of imperialism during the first world war and totalitarianism during the second world war. i can think of no other philosopher that has been blamed

for the two world wars that in fact neitzsche was blamed for but world war i and will work to and i will look more recently the development in the american academy of popular culture when neitzsche was transformed into the father or a few of the grandfather of postmodernism. many of the names of the commentators that i discuss in the book are going to be familiar to you. the trains like a chairman can come emma goldman, walter lippmann, william jennings bryan, clarence darrow, thomas, lionel trilling, newton, to the butler, cornell west and harold bloom. while some were enlivened by his writings and others were mortified by his writings, none were indifferent to the implication of the philosophy for the promise of american life and yet today however i wanted to get a different kind of reader. i want to look at a very different kind of source and i'm

going to look at the fan letters that were written by the american readers and sent to the archive in germany. i do so not only because they give us access to the intellectual world of, quote on "average americans often overlooked by intellectual historians, but because the signal how inline the philosophy and his image of the suffering larboard mad genius became so instrumental in american intellectual life. we see how americans press neitzsche to service using him to criticize the shortcomings of american democracy, the morrill committee of the priest and the promises of enchantment by the secular pop culture. the value of the letters as historical documents, as historical sources it seems to me is not the philosophical value that is to see how good they are right doing this on

neitzsche. to ensure we read them for the philosophical merits and shortcomings, but what i think is important is to listen for the historical value and that has nothing to do with whether they get neitzsche right or wrong. those kind of judgments matter but the judgments are for another day and i think probably another book. but not for the historians from interested in using these letters to listen in as it were to people from the past. to listening to people's moral reasoning, to listen in to people's longings, the pathologies and their fears. so that's what i do with these letters is to listen to how people are using this to make sense of the world not to add to dictate who's getting them right and who's getting them wrong. and the wti think of doing that is we begin to understand how and why neitzsche goes from being an extra fee during the 19th century germany to a pop

icon in american intellectual life. if book sales are a measure of literary achievement, frederick fell in 1981 was a positive failure to get his first book the birth of tragedy of the t-72 caused quite a stir among the small circle but fails to catch the attention of the broad literary press and reading public. and this was the best-selling book during his lifetime. after that it was pretty much downhill. the next year his essay stated him the confessor and writer of 1873. the first of the untimely meditations received some initial attention but then also quickly stated from the view so the work that followed, the cuban all too human of 1978, daybreak of 1981, it went virtually unnoticed. and neitzsche never tired of contemplating the travails of the untimely genius. a letter to a friend in august

of 1881 he bristled about and in different reading public who left him on silence as he wrote, quote, if i were unable to draw strength from myself, if i had to wait for the applause from internet michaud consolation, where will i be, what would i be? there were moments and whole purpose in my life and a robust word of encouragement, a agreement with have been the refreshment, and it was just then everybody left me in the lurch, and of quote. but a few months later as the projected neglect frustration out of the blue, three admirers from baltimore maryland sent him and it for larry lifeline. this is a very old letter from 1881. these things don't produce well, but this is the letter of 1881 come and let me read you what you can read for yourself in translation perhaps it is a little concern to you that here

in america three people often sit together and allow neitzsche's writings to edify them as the most intimate. but i don't see why we shouldn't least tell you we are counting on the facts that deutsch to the death of your thoughts and your supply indiction we will never be able or want to read anything off-again. we need not merely imagine how pleased neitzsche was to get this letter for preserved on the backside of the letter, written on the backside of the letter that is not preserved in the archive is his hand written note himself. the first american letter, introduction to world lowry would be a better translation would be the beginning of will seem so first american letter, the beginning of world fame finally it seemed the world was awakening to his genius. during the next few months, however silence settled back in.

nevertheless neitzsche enjoyed productivity in which he wrote his next book. was also during this period that he was reading one of his favorite philosophers ralph waldo emerson and thanks to his renewed inspiration, emmerson quotation was used for the book's epigraph. how fitting than that while riding his the was a love letter that a second letter should arrive from the state and indeed from the very native ground of this age of concord. in the letter from boston a professional violinist by the name of gustav would have wrote to express as he put my most humble thanks to the benefit - derived from your work and the wish which lifelong interest and to possess a like this be it ever so small of the man i learned to a door for the greatness of his mind and the sincerity of his utterances. bear in mind that was the transition from a german

sentence and they are allowed to write much longer sentences than we are so this was actually quite an elegant. so the use the letter also as an occasion to tell neitzsche that he had such admiration for an essay that he'd written that he had and a quote no less than three times not so much with the view to publishing my reproduction becoming more intimate with your work but in spite of my efforts my version fell short of an adequate rendition of the original but i was only too glad for the sake of your reputation to keep the minister to my desk since then i quit to start the memory of its moments remain wasn't wasted upon myself. we have no record of neitzsche's response. but one suspects he might have figured the the cultural philistines of germany were unwilling or unable to recognize his genius someone that produced

an emmerson might also have created a people with his untimely message. given the response back at home this seemed like an auspicious beginning. perhaps the dawn of the world fame was breaking in the west unfortunately that it wasn't. these are the last letters written directly prior to his mental plot in 1989. during the 1890's and full of letters from the enthusiasts trickled in birdie invalid philosophers stayed on the mother and sister elizabeth in -- and then later where he spent the last three years of his life in a room at top of the archive which was now administered by e. elizabeth who was now his

self-appointed delivery executor and administered a point of 1985. neitzsche was totally unaware of them. his days of intellectual ecstasy and agony were over but so too was the stability to read, write or even recollect to was once an avid reader and prolific writer. on their own, the letters from american fans cannot tell us much. but when we read them together with of the letters that started arriving at the archive in the immediate years following the death in the 1900's, we can see that the are indeed a case of them to come. the confessions of the esteemed adoration or repeated innumerable times of letters written by idf virus. young and old, male and female, left and right, immigrant and

native form wrote to express their devotion to the thinker that changed the way they thought about themselves and their world. they root for a picture and an autograph, they wrote for something to say thank you and to offer their assistance in spreading the neitzsche gospel america the letters might appropriately be classified as american neitzsche for the offer really just a snapshot in time and some of them are no longer than a paragraph or two. in those cases beyond having their names listed in the census records or the obituaries there is little to nothing left in the public record giving evidence of the fullness of the letter writers' lives into the greater conduct in all of their in perfect fleeting brevity these letters offer insights into how the idea is not only traveled in the world but also how they

helped make america a new and they show how and why the kind of culture she took as his enemy would come to welcome him as one of its most vital figures. the fan letter suggests to me as an intellectual historian to hold a large picture format of american intellectual life and have to start small. given the increased presence of american intellectual cultural life commentators many commentators echoed the sentiment of one observer in 1910 put it that he was, quote, in the air. they wrote about neitzsche as if he were a trends in the spirit. it was known your paper rather the demonstrated the material damage and of ideas because for many the experience their initial contact with neitzsche philosophy as so transformative along with the form they

encountered him either the photograph for the magazine the name of the newspaper review or an author for sale but the local bookshop. the letters testified to the weighty and body terms of ideas that matter to people take on a psychic value much greater than the monetary one. letter writers have commonly referred to the neitzsche copies in the books as, quote on quote, prized possessions. they shared with elizabeth which books they owned which ones they borrowed from a friend or relative and which ones they hope to procure. many of the admirers wrote in the hope of getting the secession of some tiny precious relic, some little piece of the man who for them was the lived example. one of the common requests was for the signature. in big strokes the 12-year-old

of strafford pennsylvania wrote in 1926, quote, my mother left her brothers ratings and i'm going to read them when i grew up but i wrote all about frederick and a book that has just been published by the name of the story of philosophy by will durant, and i love it. we can imagine that he wanted to send neitzsche's bollegraaf -- excuse me, wanted to share his autograph with his mom or impress his friends with it but he reasoned the request with an unadorned admission that he would come up with, just was to have it, quote, if you have one come on a would be so happy, end of quote. so this is just one of many letters requesting autographs. the request for neitzsche paraphernalia, and that is the pictures, a lot of his hair, just a little piece of writing that got a broken off, these requests for neitzsche appear familiar shed light on the broad context of the desire that he

awakened in the american leaders and the letter from 1923 of mount vernon new york wrote for information about where he could find, quote, a good picture of your great brother, end of quote. he explained the earnestness of the request and the lengthy narrative demonstrating his devotion. two years earlier of the serious student i drew a small circle of disciples around me. we told in my library lectures on a small scale on the philosophy of your unique internal brother. to fully realize the experience, he and his fellow disciples kaput, went through the innumerable tygart galleries, and of quote on the quest to find a former pitcher this week and agreed our reading room with such a holy relic but to no avail. he sought to reassure her that this request was not made lightly. he added that on behalf of his

friends and wanted to express their gratitude for the diversion to the suffering saint and he wrote, quote, please allow me hear honorable madam to mention that we venerate your honorable person as the true holiness we are aware without you and your health the life of your brother would have been a much more suffering one. so as a token of his gratitude, she did what was not uncommon to ask for something but to send something and so he sent a walk, the poem that he had paid in the flesh of his inspiration of neitzsche and so again we see this in the other letters people putting photographs of their houses, they sent their christmas cards. as the microphone on? i had a funny feeling it was

off. just keep going? can you hear me? okay. all right. sophie devotees wanted to produce a relic of him it is because he possessed them. they didn't simply ask for valuable goods to adorn their lives. the explained how the philosopher they adored taught them something precious about the good life. virtually all of the writer's contest having an encounter with neitzsche's philosophy even emboldened them or chastened them, liberated them from old of falsehoods or saddled them with new responsibilities. helene d. of dayton ohio wrote to let neitzsche know that her brother had inspired the believe that human greatness was possible in the modern world. the one worthy of his greatness he nevertheless a weekend in her the longing for something deeper in herself. neitzsche steve turkoman from

quote, where own emptiness. the country she called home had become a commonplace filled with lives trivial and easily ugly for their engrossed with money and motorists not with work or space or art. she regarded the methodist church near her house as pretentious. the disgusted by the mediocrity and around her, she was also a chagrined by her own limitations, "it would be probably impossible for you to imagine anything more superficial but reading what we can presume in the correspondence had a relationship before it ended exclusively and neitzsche documented of the letters that translated so i'm assuming this is the book she is referring to. reading this exposed her to, depth beyond death of one great

striking fire against another great seóul. all my life i will never hold onto my hundred. if i never managed to have a soul at any rate i will relay and by court or crook aware of that and desire one all my life. i will not accept substitute. we've seen in a civil wholley reader uses the philosophy to explain herself to herself. neitzsche had given her justifications for and a language to articulate her feelings of displacement and the affection of the world that seems content with ugly compromises. the philosophy gained traction during for individuality as well as belonging and the desire for a understanding the fashioned their own version execs m+r of individual the and the new self image.

>> i am pretty sure i agree to have a hard time reading the letter but it's from one george of philadelphia pennsylvania. george of pennsylvania did not express the sense of the debate surroundings, his letter similarly shows a self longing for the exultation and connection. was quite literally neitzsche who he thought to please himself, quote, my name as you will see from the above letter had is one of the few in america, probably the only one. unfortunately my grandparents and document left out to the east and the error was perpetuated. however i am proud of the name and probably my ancestors came from the same as your illustrious brother come in does quote triet said the effort to sketch of the trunk of the mutual family tree, and he went on to tell the woman he hoped was his not distant cousin about ravee bohemian the root of their people and how his branch of the

neitzsche family of integrated in 1739. this century's end ocean separated them he hoped to possess a specimen of the handwriting and his autograph and copy of the biography of your illustrious brother with an autograph inscription in your handwriting just a few mementos he hoped was in his blood. this desire to possess a piece of neitzsche as he had possessed his readers repeals the strong affinities for neitzsche's life at fox and it shows many forms in this letters. john boesh of duluth minnesota for a simple believed he was the philosophy realized. on december 9th, 1919 he said the first of three announcing his good tidings. he wrote, dear madam, i beg to inform you i am here one who was

easily enough and then refers her to the passage of one who is easily enough. he says the chapter on the tables by frederick phill your beloved deceased brother in case you haven't read it herself. you hear we of the consolation of delight to have lived long enough to know the processes and hopes of your brothers have been fulfilled to the very letter for the author of the scribbling is a very pride bostick cade said of the volumes very respectfully john boesh and then he has a bunch of praises from the north as i discussed one who is easily enough. when a week went by without giving jubilation back from the archive, bush followed up with a telegram and this is a little off so i'm assuming it is transferred by and on the english speaker in germany and the telegram reads, quote carr you're living yet ones who are easily enough, john boesh.

so inconceivable was it that neitzsche might be ignoring his extraordinary revelation, bush seemed to think the only reason for the silence could be she was dead. why else would she respond to the americans? and so he said an aggrieved feared attempted january 26th 1920 he could barely explain his inspiration and reads dear gentleman on the underside big tumble to inquire does elizabeth neitzsche the system of the late frederick w. neitzsche live? i would greatly appreciate if someone connected with the archives archival the answer the above inquiry. just one word will suffice. please, comply with the small request and oblige. please find self-addressed envelopes for the reply as it is inconvenient to remit postage on neglected that part of my obligation but hope that you will incur in that expense and he signs again thinking you in advance i remain very

respectfully john bush. calvo the connection to neitzsche's was less abashed than most others the ways in which he put the philosophy to work for self functioning was a common strategy that we see in all of these writers. they use the terms and aspects of his own life to describe themselves to themselves. one of the reasons why so many sought to fashion themselves in his language or after his image was because as the doctor of rochester minnesota expressed, neitzsche was more of a great spirit and a human being. so what we see in a lot of these letters is the strong unmistakable religious imagery that demonstrates this spiritual damage of the american neitzsche devotion to read after the death of god, the writers still want to leave themselves to images of graham birch, to defend the but this time in the form of the

human possibility. neitzsche was the image of possibility for them and so what we see in the letters, and again it's not just in the letters as i talked about in the book i see this across-the-board even the highest of the hybrid of a serious intellectual philosophical work is this transformation into a kind of secular state your. certainly the language that is shot through with religious or spiritual words. we see this as people talk about the archive. they talk about it in terms of a pilgrimage making a pilgrimage to the archive for the one letter writer put it the holiest of the holy places, and that is a quote. so american readers fascination took many forms, with the common way of expressing that devotion to travel to the archives to meet the sister and to see his room and personal library. some of the writers refer to actual visits to the archives

while others prefer to the planning stages delayed. expeditions' both realized and not provide a full view of the node to the exchange. they remind us that when ideas move the readers, they do so both in mind and body. the american leaders led to a bookstore. they went to a library, they went to a shrine and their friends' house and they saw and not all what but at least from these records made a voyage to germany. the discussion of troubled the archive suggests there is a an aspect to the story of the atlantic. not only did the text traveled to america with his ideas, but americans likewise travel to germany for them. what is significant here is that they are too long to see the archives for themselves cast this in the language of religious devotion we see this

quite beautifully in the letters referring to a trip that he took not only to the archives but also to the birthplace where he went to see the birth house, "of the room that your brother was morning and you're father's studied the old kitchen. it proved so transformative she informed them in a letter that inspired his next book project it is a tribute. the transatlantic troubles documented in the letter's demonstrate that transnational traffic of ideas slows in both directions. shows how the ideas and ideas about neitzsche traversed national borders thought to distinguish america from germany towards european intellectual life, and i think in doing so it encourages us to rethink the integrity of the national narrative's regarding thoughts and culture in other words every

national narrative that i was struggling with initially as i thought if i want to study american intellectual history you have to stick with americans, thinking that there is somehow the distinct tradition here that is cut off from the wide circulation of ideas in the world. the letters alone suggest that because a german figure proved so inspirational to the many american readers of the periodic zeal with american life to celebrate american exceptional was some sometimes the red marble often sets up a false distinction between the world views and the view in the world. the letters though small and fragmented result was consider the ways in which the moral of look at the social concerns and america has been forged through cross-cultural transatlantic system of exchange transmission modification and transformation. in doing so they help us to

rethink some of the static categories that we work with like american exceptional was on or before and thought, or we can talk about or get ideas or truly american ideas or the radical imports. but before we increase the artificiality of the construct like american or german, for an and organic we should forget the power such differences had been shaping the experience of people we study in the past. many ideas about what is us and what's them is sharpened, not smith out in the fraction of this movement. the letters in their wait till a bigger story about how the transnational trafficked of the image and ideas helped puncture and rebuild traverse and reconstituted intellectual borders between america and europe. so we might be tempted to to the vibrancy of the posthumous

american career as a sign of long standing salutary national transnational intellectual exchanges, individual the committee of the american leaders here sought just the opposite. they turned to neitzsche not because they thought he could make some big possible for the pedestrian american intellect but precisely because in their view he couldn't. the prospect of a philosophy could shrink the distance between german and american culture was the last thing on many of their minds. though they were reading it in america they never fought or desired but his philosophy could find refuge here. they simply wanted more of neitzsche, more of the german pecos of the distance and of his philosophy with which to shield themselves from the intellectual mentality of american life. so here we are seeing a very common concern we to see the much higher register as american intellectual discourse among professional and intellectuals

and america is antiintellectual. and there's plenty, we've got plenty of documentation but what is interesting is the letters show this was the concern of the lower registers of american culture as well. what we can hear in the letters also is the concern about american antiintellectualism. what we hear is the worry that america does commerce it doesn't do culture. we can make or milled mcdonald's meet them the reason we don't do that anymore what we don't do ideas we don't produce ideas secure we see in the letter the entire american intellectualism into the american of the general readers. the notion that it was a genius and we could ever produced the hero but our cultural soil is too thin to produce this kind of genius. the document belonging for intellectual engagement, the reverence for ideas even if it

is to beat corporate capitalism or the mass culture wasn't exclusive to the intellectuals to stop the world they created and embodied. these are the letters i talked about in the book but i think the store to signal some of the ways in which american readers enlisted the idea is to contemplate themselves and to critique their america and i would like to and now with one defeat does a nice job of pulling together many of the motifs of the devotion. the two page typed letter from the san francisco-based pseudonym for a greek name i won't say because i can't pronounce it, but the pseudonym is german for a pseudonym that

he's taking from plato and we see in the pseudonym of cautioning going on. in this letter and its salts the perfect neitzsche as a savior of the modern humanity and the critic of a world out of kilter. he began by telling the life of your brother was the life of a christ pure and great. millman suffered what he did on account of his convictions not even jesus christ, end of quote. he informed him that he agreed american who emigrated to the united states as a child believed she had the german people from which he came for the true descendants of the whole spirit. he flashed back when they came like a thunderbolt from olympus. when america entered the unjust war met on germany in 1917 he opted for incarceration rather than to bear arms against the true greeks. he was disgusted with american

literature which produced only junk writers none worthy of her brother and then in the letters he moved from strategic culture to the contrasted which is the scene for germany and italy. why only hope that america might someday produce writer is worthy of neitzsche that america will be in the place to show her savior as italy and germany. that the slides were written in 1933 can only suggest that hitler's less to power confirmed his view of the unfortunate incongruity between german greatness and american poverty. he concluded by thinking her brother for having grace world history with a timeless and timely philosophy of life. so the letter is packed with many of the themes running through virtually all of the american fan letters sent to the archive as the readers young adult male and female from some from cisco made every made neitzsche of their own image.

scholars, writers and readers like him lent a hand in putting their speed and rhetoric and the personal companions, secular st or the cultural critic to work on themselves and their america and in doing so they naturalized as an american or one of us. for crittenden particular neitzsche as a hellenic christ not hebraic one helped to fill when the counters of his own greek american identity, helped to articulate why he felt such a distance from american culture and helped him write his own political ideas. his use shows how the move to time and space and every time they did so they reconstituted when they got in the hands of an american reader. they considered neitzsche's books among the highest positions by writing to procure additional work that i photograph of his handwriting, his american readers salles tangible records of the authors whose ideas demonstrated

practical power in their lives to reveal the reason they wanted to possess, however, was because neitzsche had possessed them. kristen's letters like the letters before him offered a preview of the red variety for decades to come. the letter was the ink on paper what many in the decades to come would put in their blood and on their bodies. so for him to get closer he wrote a confessional letter. for the 21-year-old jack 11 years later he wrote in the quotation and his blood. he did so in 1944 in an early period of artistic searching itself creation had borrowed allen ginsberg library card to check out bob zenas and in the vision of the transfer the power of art that he was trying to achieve in his own life and work. to ensure that they would stay

with him after he returned the zero books to the library, carroll cut his finger and what his blood wrote the following words from the birth of tragedy, quote, art is the highest task and proper metaphysical the activity of this life, and of quote to over half a century later the desire to bring neitzsche on to get into oneself can be seen on the tetris of the bodies of the 20 something and of words like the actress mcginn fox who has on her red caging quotation, and like derek, the index of my book who incidentally is also an advanced graduate student in educational theory of comparative literature who at our first meeting to go over the manuscript and talk about the index showed me why he should be deindexed hour of my book by pulling up his shirt and shoving me his neitzsche tattoo

-- there's always maginnis and love the there's always some reason and massiveness. how fitting that this quotation is pulled from a section called reading and writing with the right, "of all that is written by love only what a person has in his blood to the heat of rights and blood doesn't want to be red light learned by heart and those who wanted to learn by heart, they did so by bringing them in their blood. an example like the red cage simply make little what has been sick role in american history or 20th century history and that is the of that inscribed on the american body that neitzsche is in our blood and as allan bloom put it neitzsche is us three or

the risks involved the more interpretive ways than they can bear. can the right a cranky letter were to tell us anything broad significance for understanding the importance for 20th century thought and culture? my belief is that they do precisely because they speak to the ways in which an astonishing range of readers participated in the white circuit of the intellectual exchange than we normally appreciate. in addition they show how they work in the designation average and average american no longer make sense to his readers as a self description. even for those who came with the sense of inadequacy he provided them a language to critique the church of the marketplace for the civics lesson that helped them to sharpen their sense of distinction in themselves enabling them to feel their own particular the. the letters reflect the sentiment that is also echoed in the published sources.

mainly it was a philosopher profit who worked not by issuing instructions for conduct but by serving as a to becoming. if they were of equal to render their belief they could at least believe themselves to a thinker that have learned to live without them. thank you. [applause] i will leave the tattoos up and i happy to take some questions right now. i've just been asked if you want to pose a question to please wait until the microphone comes to you so you can ask the question and the microphone. >> [inaudible] seem to be either internment or people talking about the solidarity or -- i wonder how much of the early popularity was

a matter of the immigrants who were longing for the connection to the country. >> that is a wonderful question. a disproportionate number of the letters are written by people with german names. and the letters -- some of them are written in german and some of them are written in english where the letter writer regrets he or she can't write in his or her mother's tong the that this is a source of great consternation so we think it is freakin' server conceivable that neitzsche resonated with the german leaders but if we look to the sources it doesn't seem representative. first at the turn of the last century most educated americans come german was a standard second language so you didn't have to be ethnically german and also the first translations were available and 1896 so people

could start reading it in translation so it seems to be the answer to your question is both yes and no. my sense is that for ethnic germans there was that sense of affiliation you see it in someone like neitzsche but you see also that will need to connect to feel it was a sibling the sole extends to people that were not ethnically german. i would make one more point on that and that is in the early years of his posture of saying as it were in america was seen as a polish come ethnically colish and not german. neitzsche described himself as the descendant of polish aristocrats and partly for the way for him to criticize germany so this is picked up and becomes a big subject of conversation and debate it and think it is interesting neitzsche as colish of the american intellectual life until world war i and it's

at that point that neitzsche becomes seen as the monster or the inspiration of the german mind so he becomes german but he starts of polish and this is often said to criticize if you were german we get them better. our universities are modeled. we are reading the great german figure so making him polish made him exotic. >> thank you for a wonderful presentation, and again

[inaudible] [inaudible] >> that's a good question because i would see that to the interpretations and the letters and what we can see in the widely published sources, so no, that kind of self criticism that

we see maybe someone comes as close, the sense of inadequacy but that isn't quite what you were talking about but for certain in the broader reception many thinkers pick up on this. that to be a neitzsche you can't be of a neitzschen. so she's one of the early, credited for making bringing them to the america in the late 19th century and early 20s century was an early if he said the only that died, he was the only that died said he recognized a ridiculous this was he was critical that should neitzsche ever get a reception here in america or get zenas here in america it could only be if people misunderstand him cities of the first pick up on this, this gets picked up over and over and over again the

notion that he can have a wide readership because if he does, then it's it is hero worship and neitzsche was critical of so there are commentators who themselves are critical of this and other examples i could go on and on their field of every popularizing alan blum is a perfect example of this. according to blow he could be such a figure of our pop culture is because he's so badly misunderstood and there is truth to that and the simple answer is that sense of criticism and understanding that neitzsche didn't want them to really see that in fact the person that expresses this most elegantly is

an eyebrow raising our people discover was a neitzsche reader because rice was a firm idealist in the heyday of those pragmatism's so is the on idealist atacama antiidealist philosopher but he understood this about neitzsche was that he was torn down and the absolutes, tore down the foundations of our beliefs. he said it's our job to come up with the images of the possible so rice understood if you turn neitzsche into that, you're missing the boat, you are not fulfilling what neitzsche had called for or what he envisioned ..

it assumes that nietzsche so well-known that people would understand and god is good maybe. >> that's exactly, and this is how we know that nietzsche is so conventional as i put it in an article that i had written at the conventional hees iconoclast, the quintessential iconoclast and american culture. >> people know him or his image but they don't know much about what he has done. >> sherbet already obviously there are different kinds of forces.

nietzsche is a throwaway line in a movie you can subject to the same critical analysis of entire books that emit written about him and in the book i try to look at all of those. i try to look at all the various registries in which nietzsche crops up in our life by the think even the throwaway line as you put it, the throwaway visuals. the best one i can think of now is little miss sunshine where the brother, the teenage brother is a nietzsche and and the movie has, i put it upon the up on the screen and i could go back to it where he was doing situps or push-ups in his room. do you remember? it was kind of -- and flexing his own power amidst the backdrop. if we could just go back. how do we make it bigger? i am not sure i can. maybe i will leave it like that because otherwise i will press a button and it will explode. is the one in the mission --

middle where it is nietzsche's profile with a mustache and i have to tell you when i saw this i don't know the date of the movie, nietzsche's album come 2,042,005 i saw this in a miami movie theater with a bunch of people younger than myself let's put it that way and as soon as the scene crops up they burst out into laughter. that is exactly what the movie was going for, just a visual cue he and congress dmv inserted the of it. do i think people read nietzsche? know but that cue already suggested you know the self aggrandize teenagers, the noddyness, and again i think those are simply the point of entry for me to ask why? how is it possible that in blazing saddles or conan the barbarian it can open with a quirk and it has immediate resonance with us in part of what i try to examine in the book is because there is a long history of engagement with

nietzsche that he is just part of our discourse. his terms are our terms and nietzsche is now a standard iconic graphic image in our visual culture. >> i am curious, in the archives did you get any clues into elizabeth's role in either in her voice back to these writers? what did she choose to say? i was sitting here thinking come is, is there hate mail in their or was it the throwaway hate mail? do you get another side or reaction? i mean do you, in your archival research did you, could you figure out how she contributes to fashioning what is left for you? >> thank god for really talented and hard-working historians who have cobbled together the

crucial role in nietzsche's career. when nietzsche has his mental breakdown in 1889 he spends the last 11 years of his life really stark raving mad. he gets worse but in essence she takes over and it's already in this year's where she is crafting nietzsche as a profit and she is largely as many scholars we have nietzsche to thank. prior to his sister, prior to some early discovery's nietzsche had not yet rogan and she was instrumental. the unfortunate part of that story is that she was anti-semitic. she was very nationalistic and in fact she is the one who over the course of the early 30s helps to make the nietzsche

archives basically an instrument or an institution devoted to the nazis. there is a famous picture where she welcomes hitler and there is a picture of hitler next to nietzsche so she plays some unfortunate role in helping to refashion nietzsche is a nazi. then she is crucial for getting the public translations out so she is really crucial for getting nietzsche out there. how did she respond to the letter writers? the problem in the archive is the hardiness of the record. they do not -- they were unable to tap any kind of record of what degree, how many letters, the letters that are still accident reflect. in some cases there were outgoing letters that have been sent back in some of them were very gracious and very particular so we could see out of some of these letters she forms relationships with some people. she had a relationship with h.l.

mencken and she had a relationship with conofer early on. she had a relationship with northwestern philosopher by the name of james hatfield who was an important philosopher in the early 20th century and sends nietzsche's collective volumes to him so he could have it at northwestern but it's just very soggy what she wrote back. so, what i don't have is how much these letters reflect, how many letters came in and you can't quite see the extent to which he wrote that but i mean i can see kind of funny things where it's actually nietzsche that writes a follow up letter saying i understand that you cannot send an autograph of nietzsche. you need to keep his body body up on a graph syntax so i respect that. i'm like, what? i have heard other people say thank you for the autographed so i think she might've been very choosy and very selective and

fatty about who she would foster a relationship with and who not. >> is the american response to nietzsche in a different than other nationalities? >> that is a wonderful question. and, it's a question that you know, i can answer to varying degrees with precision but here's what i think is the clearest distinction if you will. so, one way to answer the question is no. there some things which we see in all of the reception and of course up for is a worldwide phenomena and there there has been work on nietzsche in germany and france, in scandinavia and in italy, japan, and so what i can see are some of the things we are seeing in

america are help -- happening elsewhere. what i think is particular to the american reading is that i have very few nietzsche interpreters who are reading this nietzsche as they lyrical thinker and politics with the p. they are reading nietzsche if he is a critic of democracy, he is a cultural critic of democracy. that is to say he is a critic of the kinds of human types of democracy fostered. does that make sense? they are reading nietzsche not as some a some great visionary of a new kind of politics which we of course see in russia, in italy with fascism and mussolini and of course with the nazis. we don't see that in america. that is to say there may be conservative to read nietzsche or liberals who read nietzsche

and we see both of those but they are reading him more as a cultural critic of the human types of democracy offered and i think that is very different. and i think that is very particular. it is again a nietzsche about american culture or a nietzsche about american individuality, nietzsche a commentator on american souls but not necessarily on our political system as such. the other thing i would signal and danny was kind enough to reference it in his intro and something worth remembering was that as a mentioned in the talk that nietzsche was an avid reader of emerson. in fact emerson was the first philosopher that nietzsche red. nietzsche red emerson already has a teenager and discuss this in the prologue. and so one of the things i try to examine the book are these -- or touch on, when his ideas first come to america in the

early 20th century, occasionally thinkers would say that is kind of familiar. it sounds a little bit like our emerson but they usually do this as a way to make a distinction. either that nietzsche is genius and emerson is victorian and too much of a goody goody-goody or emerson is safe for democracy, he is wholesome and well and he doesn't have a break down and subor is a madman. for those early on who hear the emersonian timber in nietzsche's boys are trying to draw a distinction between is interesting is this connection carries on in the american readings and in the last chapter i discuss in particular three authors, the philosopher richard gordy, carol plume and philosopher stanley cobell harvard philosopher who each in their own way you nietzsche as a way to get back to emerson to

re-read and rediscover emerson for the american audience. so i think what might he does think about america, or what we might be able to say is somehow colors the perception is in nietzsche americans are hearing as loom put it there own inner orator. they are hearing emerson so i think there is something particular in that way. there is one more hand. maybe one more question. she is going to bring you the mic. >> i am an indigenous person, tribal person and we see nietzsche as just very different.

particularly the view of a lot of americans admired nietzsche for his rebellion and his iconic side. but we see him as someone without a conscience. for instance his book, beyond good and evil so we see him as is very much like americans, and we actually -- it's not really a matter of a culture. we see him as physiologically different. we see ourselves as being -- to a conception of right and wrong, of what should and should not be and that cannot change depending upon what we read or what kind of education we have. i blog blogged about this on the

internet. >> thank you. well, that is a very big question but let me try to give you a simple answer and hopefully not a simplistic one but i think, i don't know if i would say nietzsche without a conscience but nietzsche certainly is calling into question all absolutes. subfor calls into question all foundations for human belief whether it be god or science, whether it is truth. so nietzsche's entire philosophical project, and mean he does a lot of things as a writer but one clear through line of his writing and certainly the one that has the biggest impact here is that nietzsche challenged universal truths. >> that as we we we see as the problem. he doesn't think there is

anything that is subjective. >> right. >> that is what we see is the problem. he thinks there are no facts and just hypotheses and there is no objective reality. >> that is a very good -- of nietzsche and one that many americans have, share with you. it's for this very reason that some think he is remarkable and timely and needed, to get rid of the artifacts of you know what it is, whether it's christianity, whether it's the artifacts of sexism or racism or an artifact of a dysfunctional democracy. others see it as a terrible distract fifth set of ideas that cause to put everything into question that has no reference that gives us no point of moral orientation and for a pluralist

country trying to find its unity, this is not the kind of philosopher we need here. and so you are not alone in that reading of nietzsche and all i would say to you as a historian is there are many people who i think really intelligent and is deemed interesting readers did very different things with the consequences with that so you are on, you are right. the question for readers was what came out on the other and? can we get a more humane america? a better democracy? or is this, but this terror away everything we hold near and dear and they destroyed a nihilistic age? the states -- stakes are very high in nietzsche and most of his readers understood that and how they came to terms with their america is the subject of the book and the reason it is the subject of the book is it is

a huge part of our intellectual history. today the letter writer is a tiny sampling of a much larger set of conversations, worried ones, angry once. today i showed you the devotee but there are people that have dedicated their careers to taking nietzsche down and they are important too. they are discussed in the book as well but what i hope to make unmistakable is we need to understand these moral reckonings and 20 century american life. we can't do it without understanding nietzsche entering into the conversation. thank you. >> there was a comment in which he was compared to albert einstein. albert einstein's ideas, basically on popularization of moral relativity, that there are no absolutes and so my people don't admire him either.

>> yeah, but that is nietzsche, moral relativity, or that already, let me change that one because i could quibble with that philosophically. a reader of nietzsche quibbles with moral relativity. is the same absolute of objectivity bhagat back is a little high-flying versus 7:30 but the notion that he is carrying away moral absolutes is absolutes are and your concern about the consequences for that and also that brushes up against what you hold dear. >> in the united states, i am what is called an indigenous terrapin tribes person and our people are being used for medical experimentation right now. there is a genocide and nobody cares because it doesn't affect them. this is moral relativity.

is far morality was based on our physiology and there was absolute right and wrong this could not be happening. >> i mean, i would just try to bring to you awareness that there are many nietzsche readers who would think that nietzsche's readers would be as outraged as you are and he would just bring different arguments. thank you. thank you very much for coming. [applause] >> now more from shreveport weekend here in booktv.

>> hi, i am martha lollar, the cataloger for the james smith noel collection that louisiana state university in shreveport. mr. noel was a local man born in -- and he started accumulating books when he was a teenager and continued until he was in its adsl over his his lifetime he is humiliated over 200,000 volumes. this way, we will show you the collection. mr. noel passed away in 1998, and his widow passed away a few years ago. they did not have any children, so this is his legacy. it is a working collection. it is not meant to be a museum. it is meant to be used, so we are in the process of sorting through and making it a little more user-friendly. this room is the exhibit room.

it is actually the smaller of the two rooms so we call it the little room. eventually, the books that are older and the ones with nice bindings, they will be in this room. there will be a lot of empty space as we go down through the collection. there's a lot of empty space in this room and that is because we are in the process of shifting everything around. eventually, everything that we have moved to the big room will be moved back here as the catalog it. if you come down this way you can see it's pretty much in order through here. most of the collection was printed before the middle of the 1900's, so most of it is creaking -- creeping up to 100 years and older. we have two books that go back to the 1400's. so far, we have found maybe a couple dozen from the 1500's, a couple hundred from the 1600's

and the 1700's and we are still finding more. >> and where did mr. noel keep his collection? >> before it came here was in an abandoned train station in downtown louisiana, downtown shreveport. that building has since been torn down. it was sold to the city of shreveport for a railroad newseum, and was considered to be too costly to refurbish it so they tore it down. it is now, or it used to be on the side of the hilton hotel where the little café is on the corner. at one time somebody told me there was an oil well near those tracks so it was not ideal environmental conditions to have it in the railroad station, but most of the books are in pretty good shape considering the conditions they were in. you see there is a lot of empty space there. that will eventually get built

back up as we get things catalogued. and this is one of the books that is probably the most interesting. this is the book of costumes that was printed in 1807. it was owned by a former actor, whom a lot of people may recognize. and we don't know for sure that he uses to design his costumes but you will probably recognize some of them in here. these are hand plates and when rudolph valentino on this book, it was at that time 100 years old so he was really trying to find a unique source. if you come this way, this is the little room and we are about to go into the big room. everything you see in both rooms is collected by one person. there is approximately over

200,000 volumes and they are on two-thirds of this floor. it is arranged in basic categories and as i've caught a lot -- catalog them they are staying together but things are getting a little more workable. >> was he collecting anything particular or was he planning to write a book? >> he was basically a big fan of books but if he had a particular one is what he the 18th century and on into the 19th and really before the 18th, so basically his was the 18th century. he has a lot of books on history and literature, and he focuses in that area and a lot of our patrons are scholars who studied that time period so if we had a

focus that would be it. he is really kind of all over the place with his interest. he was a man who just love to learn, and he set this up to promote the joy of learning in other people and that is something we stress to our students when they bring them through on tours. >> what is their reaction when they see it? >> they love it. we call that door on the side there is a price door because they almost hit the floor when they come through. just the idea that somebody accumulated this many books. we also point out to them that a lot of these books, you can't get them in any other form, any other version. this is a format that has managed to survive for all the century so there has to be something in it. everybody wants to go electronic now but as we all know, electronic formats get updated

frequently so trying to stress that there is a place in the world for old books and printed material. sometimes they will come through on to worse and i can see them do this, you know. they are afraid to touch. they want to pick them up and look at them and they just get so fascinated with them. this is our fault and we have not just things that are unique and rare, but also things that have something unusual about them. most of what is in here has been catalogued, so you will be able to find them on the library internet. so, this is an interesting find we had. we have been here for several years and i happen to be working in one area of the big room one day, and saw these two volumes. this is one of them. you can see the binding is not all that special.

this was a version of repair work that mr. noel had tried at one point and realized that it was probably not going to work. when i opened it i realized, these are issues of a newspaper from 1783 to about 1786 in london called the london journal. the only other copies i have been able to find in north america is one issue of this newspaper at yale. so we have almost five years worth, almost a complete five years worth. there've been a few copies in europe but as far as we know we have the only copies of these particular issues. and you see they have been fairly well preserved. well, this is interesting because america declared independence from britain of of have course in 1776 lead but in the 1780s we were still fighting them so there are reports of troop movement over

here. these reports are referred to the enemy troops in the enemy is actually us. there are also details the van cropsey's, ships that sail, what cargo they had, stock rises, all kinds of daily information. and each issue was about two weeks long and it was a weekly. one of the special things we have is this copy of aesop's fables, printed in paris and 1549. and you can see it had two different owners and each one has had their name removed, probably by competing owners. the only two copies of this we have been able to find are at yale and cambridge in england. and you can see that the text is parallel text in greek and

latin. this is a nice little book. another thing we have our books of ownership. this one, we stopped pulling this out too often. if we had a jam in the collection it's probably going to be this one. it's the one we are most proud of. it's in the original binding from 1699 and it was once owned by a very famous scientist. you can see he has written his name, i.e. newton. we are not pulling it out so much anymore because it is starting to flake away. there is a note on this side from someone who says this book was purchased in a bookseller shop near the house when newton thed.