John A. McCarthy is Professor of German & Comparative Literature, Associate Director of the Center for European and German Studies, and Chair of the Faculty Senate at Vanderbilt University. He previously taught at the University of Pennsylvania, has held visiting professorships at Swarthmore College and the Universität München, and served as the Charlotte M. Craig Visiting Professor at Rutgers University. McCarthy teaches courses on the Enlightenment and its legacies, Goethe’s Faust, Nietzsche and literature, on changing concepts of evil, and on science and literature. Among his numerous publications are: Strategien der Schöpfung. Paradigmenwechsel der Kreativität in Natur und Kunst (1995), Enlightenment Today or Movement at the Borders (1996), ‘A Chain of Utmost Potency’: On the Agon and the Creative Impulse in “Faust” (1997), Boundary Literature and the Notion of Literariness (1997), Disrupted Patterns: On Chaos and Order in the Enlightenment (ed. with Theodore E. D. Braun, 1999), Beyond a Philosophy of Alternatives: Chaos, Cosmology and the Eighteenth Century(1999), Die Nietzsche-Rezeption in der Literatur 1890﷓1918 (1999), Bewegung als ‘Gegenstand’ der Literatur (1999), Criticism and Experience: Philosophy and Literature in the German Enlightenment (2002), The “Pregnant Point”: Goethe on Complexity, Interdisciplinarity, and Emergence (2002), The History of German Departments in the United States (2003), The Many Faces of Germany (2004, ed. with Walter Grünzweig and Thomas Koebner), Goethe and Schiller after Adorno (2004), and Kopernikus und die bewegliche Schönheit oder Schiller und die Gravitationslehre (2005). He is currently working on a book on counter cultures 1770-1990.

• List of IllustrationsPrefaceIntroduction: Getting to the Bottom of ThingsPART ONE: THEORETICAL ENCIRCLEMENTSChapter 1: From Matter to Mind: Revolutions Real and ConceptualChapter 2: Imitating Nature – Gaining the Right PerspectiveChapter 3: Grounding Creativity: Nietzsche and the New UniverseChapter 4: Eden’s Aftermath: The Nature of EvilPART TWO: LITERARY ITERATIONSChapter 5: “A Highly Complex Matter”: The Spirit of the Earth, Evil, and Creativity in FaustChapter 6: Zarathustra – Life on EarthChapter 7: The Tin Drum: Myth and Reality, or The Eternal ReturnEpilogue: Emergence, Horizons, ContinuanceBibliographyIndex

"…a masterful text…an ingenious tour de force for anyone interested in science and literature, Goethe, Nietzsche, Grass, or contemporary theories of text and mind." – in: Monatshefte 99/2 (2007)"…the vivacity and effervescence of McCarthy’s study." – in: Modern Language Review 102/2 (2007)

John A. McCarthy is Professor of German & Comparative Literature, Associate Director of the Center for European and German Studies, and Chair of the Faculty Senate at Vanderbilt University. He previously taught at the University of Pennsylvania, has held visiting professorships at Swarthmore College and the Universität München, and served as the Charlotte M. Craig Visiting Professor at Rutgers University. McCarthy teaches courses on the Enlightenment and its legacies, Goethe’s Faust, Nietzsche and literature, on changing concepts of evil, and on science and literature. Among his numerous publications are: Strategien der Schöpfung. Paradigmenwechsel der Kreativität in Natur und Kunst (1995), Enlightenment Today or Movement at the Borders (1996), ‘A Chain of Utmost Potency’: On the Agon and the Creative Impulse in “Faust” (1997), Boundary Literature and the Notion of Literariness (1997), Disrupted Patterns: On Chaos and Order in the Enlightenment (ed. with Theodore E. D. Braun, 1999), Beyond a Philosophy of Alternatives: Chaos, Cosmology and the Eighteenth Century(1999), Die Nietzsche-Rezeption in der Literatur 1890﷓1918 (1999), Bewegung als ‘Gegenstand’ der Literatur (1999), Criticism and Experience: Philosophy and Literature in the German Enlightenment (2002), The “Pregnant Point”: Goethe on Complexity, Interdisciplinarity, and Emergence (2002), The History of German Departments in the United States (2003), The Many Faces of Germany (2004, ed. with Walter Grünzweig and Thomas Koebner), Goethe and Schiller after Adorno (2004), and Kopernikus und die bewegliche Schönheit oder Schiller und die Gravitationslehre (2005). He is currently working on a book on counter cultures 1770-1990.

• List of IllustrationsPrefaceIntroduction: Getting to the Bottom of ThingsPART ONE: THEORETICAL ENCIRCLEMENTSChapter 1: From Matter to Mind: Revolutions Real and ConceptualChapter 2: Imitating Nature – Gaining the Right PerspectiveChapter 3: Grounding Creativity: Nietzsche and the New UniverseChapter 4: Eden’s Aftermath: The Nature of EvilPART TWO: LITERARY ITERATIONSChapter 5: “A Highly Complex Matter”: The Spirit of the Earth, Evil, and Creativity in FaustChapter 6: Zarathustra – Life on EarthChapter 7: The Tin Drum: Myth and Reality, or The Eternal ReturnEpilogue: Emergence, Horizons, ContinuanceBibliographyIndex

"…a masterful text…an ingenious tour de force for anyone interested in science and literature, Goethe, Nietzsche, Grass, or contemporary theories of text and mind." – in: Monatshefte 99/2 (2007)"…the vivacity and effervescence of McCarthy’s study." – in: Modern Language Review 102/2 (2007)

John A. McCarthy is Professor of German & Comparative Literature, Associate Director of the Center for European and German Studies, and Chair of the Faculty Senate at Vanderbilt University. He previously taught at the University of Pennsylvania, has held visiting professorships at Swarthmore College and the Universität München, and served as the Charlotte M. Craig Visiting Professor at Rutgers University. McCarthy teaches courses on the Enlightenment and its legacies, Goethe’s Faust, Nietzsche and literature, on changing concepts of evil, and on science and literature. Among his numerous publications are: Strategien der Schöpfung. Paradigmenwechsel der Kreativität in Natur und Kunst (1995), Enlightenment Today or Movement at the Borders (1996), ‘A Chain of Utmost Potency’: On the Agon and the Creative Impulse in “Faust” (1997), Boundary Literature and the Notion of Literariness (1997), Disrupted Patterns: On Chaos and Order in the Enlightenment (ed. with Theodore E. D. Braun, 1999), Beyond a Philosophy of Alternatives: Chaos, Cosmology and the Eighteenth Century(1999), Die Nietzsche-Rezeption in der Literatur 1890﷓1918 (1999), Bewegung als ‘Gegenstand’ der Literatur (1999), Criticism and Experience: Philosophy and Literature in the German Enlightenment (2002), The “Pregnant Point”: Goethe on Complexity, Interdisciplinarity, and Emergence (2002), The History of German Departments in the United States (2003), The Many Faces of Germany (2004, ed. with Walter Grünzweig and Thomas Koebner), Goethe and Schiller after Adorno (2004), and Kopernikus und die bewegliche Schönheit oder Schiller und die Gravitationslehre (2005). He is currently working on a book on counter cultures 1770-1990.

• List of IllustrationsPrefaceIntroduction: Getting to the Bottom of ThingsPART ONE: THEORETICAL ENCIRCLEMENTSChapter 1: From Matter to Mind: Revolutions Real and ConceptualChapter 2: Imitating Nature – Gaining the Right PerspectiveChapter 3: Grounding Creativity: Nietzsche and the New UniverseChapter 4: Eden’s Aftermath: The Nature of EvilPART TWO: LITERARY ITERATIONSChapter 5: “A Highly Complex Matter”: The Spirit of the Earth, Evil, and Creativity in FaustChapter 6: Zarathustra – Life on EarthChapter 7: The Tin Drum: Myth and Reality, or The Eternal ReturnEpilogue: Emergence, Horizons, ContinuanceBibliographyIndex

"…a masterful text…an ingenious tour de force for anyone interested in science and literature, Goethe, Nietzsche, Grass, or contemporary theories of text and mind." – in: Monatshefte 99/2 (2007)"…the vivacity and effervescence of McCarthy’s study." – in: Modern Language Review 102/2 (2007)