Required textbooks:

Oscar Wilde, Complete Works (Harper and Row)
OK, this is slightly confusing: there are two volumes, both called The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, published by HarperCollins (formerly Harper and Row), and they're different. (And also are not to be confused with Oxford UP's multi-volume edition, which has the same title as well.)
The older of the two is better -- the ISBN is 0-06-096393-X -- and it's your preferred option.
But in case you're not able to find one at the bookstore, or online, you can get this ISBN: 978-0-00-714436-5.
Neil Bartlett, Who Was That Man? A Present for Mr Oscar Wilde (Serpents Tail)
Nietzsche, Basic Writings of Nietzsche, trans. and ed. Walter Kaufmann, Modern Library.
Nietzsche, The Portable Nietzsche, trans. and ed. Walter Kaufmann, Penguin.
Nietzsche, The Gay Science, trans. Walter Kaufmann, Vintage.
Alexander Nehamas, Nietzsche: Life as Literature, Harvard UP.

You'll be required to bring physical copies of the textbooks to class. Most of these books have been in print for quite a while, and you can save money by finding them used. Make sure to get the recommended edition(s)/translations: in particular, there are many translations of Nietzsche, and not all of them are respectable.

Additional readings will be made available through the Marriott Library reserve desk. (See Marriott's Course Reserve How to Guide for an intro to using the library reserves.)

For best results with JSTOR, either click on a JSTOR link while you're on-campus, or click through to the journal from the Marriott catalog, log in, and search JSTOR for the item.

Reading Assignments:

Jan. 11: Introduction: Finding an Approach. Optional prereading: Thomas Nagel, "The Absurd". (This is a JSTOR link -- see above; the essay can also be found in Nagel's collection, Mortal Questions.) David Wiggins, "Truth, Invention, and the Meaning of Life" [online reserve].)
Jan. 13: Life as a Work of Art.
Reading: Wilde, "The Decay of Lying"; Wilde, "Pen, Pencil and Poison" (in Wilde, Complete Works). (If you don't have the book yet, here's the former, and here's the latter.)
Jan. 18: The Knockoff Problem.
Reading: Wilde, "The Critic as Artist". Start reading The Picture of Dorian Gray over the MLK weekend!
Optional followon reading (not on reserve): Alexander Nehamas, The Art of Living.
Jan. 20: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
Reading: "The Burden of Itys" (CW 736ff; use Bartleby if your book hasn't arrived yet). Please come to class prepared to read it aloud and to paraphrase. Also, "The Truth of Masks" (CW 1060-1078).
Optional followon: Richard Jenkyns, The Victorians and Ancient Greece.
Jan. 25: A Reductio in Advance?
Reading: The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Optional reading, while you're starting to think about writing your papers: George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language" (online reserve).
Jan. 27: Arguing Against Aestheticism.
Reading: Colin McGinn, "The Picture: Dorian Gray" (online reserve).
Optional followon reading: J.-K. Huysmans, Against Nature.
Feb. 1: What Was Wilde's Persona?
Reading: Bartlett, Who Was That Man?, chs. 1-3.
Optional followon reading, for folks who want a more traditional bio: either of Richard Ellmann or Matthew Sturgis, Oscar Wilde (both books have the same title, unsurprisingly).
Feb. 3: What Is Ornamental Drama?
Reading: Wilde, "The Importance of Being Earnest".
Optional reading, for your amusement: Saki, "Reginald at the Carlton" (online reserve).
Feb. 8: The Life and Letter.
Reading: Wilde, "De Profundis".
Optional reading: Ellmann, Oscar Wilde, chs. 17-20.
Feb. 10: Theory of Tragedy.
Reading: Wilde, "The Ballad of Reading Gaol".
Optional reading: Wilde, "Two Letters to the Daily Chronicle" (CW 958). Followon reading (not on reserve): Nicholas Frankel, Oscar Wilde: The Unrepentant Years.
Feb. 15: Dying Beyond One's Means.
Reading: Bartlett, pp. 126-162; Wilde, "The Master" (CW 865).
Optional reading: John Betjeman, "The Arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel". Followon reading, for students with way too much time on their hands: Charles Maturin, Melmoth the Wanderer (not on reserve).

MODEL PAPERS ARE NOW AVAILABLE IN THE PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT

Feb. 17: The Decadent Style.
Reading: Wilde, Salome. (Please make sure to read the play; the Rambova version is a silent movie, and is missing most of the dialogue.)
Optional viewing: Charles Bryant (dir.), Alla Nazimova, and starring Natacha Rambova, Salome (1922).
Feb. 22: The Art of the MacGuffin.
Reading: Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan.
Optional reading: Philip Hoare, Oscar Wilde's Last Stand.
Feb. 24: Scandal Management.
Reading: Wilde, An Ideal Husband.
Optional reading: You can take a (second?) look at Wiggins, "Truth, Invention, and the Meaning of Life" (online reserve).
Mar. 1: Jeff Wall Syndrome and Paradoxes of Narcissism.
Reading: Wilde, "The Portrait of Mr W. H.".
Optional reading: Wilde, "The Soul of Man Under Socialism".
Mar. 3: The Euthyphro Problem and Unintended Consequences.
Reading: Wilde, "The Fisherman and His Soul".
Optional reading: Alexander Nehamas, The Art of Living (not on reserve).

Have a great Spring Break -- take Nehamas, Nietzsche: Life as Literature, to Puerto Vallarta!

Mar. 15: The Eternal Return.
Reading: GS 341, BGE 56, Z III.2.2 ("On the Vision and the Riddle," beginning with "Stop, dwarf!"), Z III.13 ("The Convalescent") -- and here's a list of those abbreviations for Nietzsche's works.
Nehamas, Nietzsche: Life as Literature (there will be a pop quiz).
Optional reading: Iddo Landau, Finding Meaning in an Imperfect World (not on reserve).
Mar. 17: The Genealogy, Read Straight (I).
Reading: GM Preface and Essay I.
Optional reading: Thinking about your paper? Ian Anthony, "Metaphysical Doubling contra ad Hominem," is a model paper by a former student (available in the Philosophy Department office) that discusses GM I.13.
Mar. 22: The Genealogy, Read Straight (II).
Reading: GM Essay II. (Please pay special attention to GM II.2, 12-13.) Lanier Anderson, "Autonomy and the Meaning of the 'Sovereign Individual'" (online reserve).
Optional reading: Ken Gemes, "We Remain of Necessity Strangers to Ourselves" (online reserve).
Mar. 24: The Genealogy, Read Straight (III) -- and Pushback to the Straight Reading.
Reading: GM Essay III; review GM I.13-14. (It's helpful if you try reading the latter section aloud -- and I'm going to ask people to do that in class, so you can prep for it by practicing one or the other voice.)
Optional reading: Robert Solomon, "Nietzsche ad Hominem" (online reserve), and "One Hundred Years of Ressentiment" (online reserve). Ken Gemes, "We Remain of Necessity Strangers to Ourselves" (online reserve).
Mar. 29: Anti-Atomism... and Complaints about Foucauldian Genealogy.
Reading: BGE Part I (please pay close attention to BGE 11-12, 14, 16-17, 19, 20), plus BGE 39, 268 (but you may want to read straight through, as much of the early stretches of BGE as you have time for, so that you have a sense of the context). GS 110-112, 121, 354; TI 3.5. Alasdair MacIntyre, "Genealogies and Subversions" (this is ch. 2 of his Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry; online reserve).
Optional reading: Maudemarie Clark, "Nietzsche's Immoralism and the Concept of Morality" (online reserve).
Mar. 31: Who Are the Philosophers of Future? Paying Attention to the Elephant in the Room.
Reading: BGE 42-43, 197-198, 197f, Parts VI-VIII, esp. 203, 210-213; Nehamas, "Who Are 'The Philosophers of the Future'? A Reading of Beyond Good and Evil" (online reserve).
Optional reading: Louise Pedersen, "Nietzsche's Misogyny: A Methodological Illustration of Value Creation" (model paper, on reserve in the Philosophy Department).
Apr. 5: Taking Nietzsche for a Drive!
Reading: Katsafanas, "Nietzsche's Philosophical Psychology" (online reserve). Anderson, "What Is a Nietzschean Self?" (online reserve).
Please come to class prepared to briefly describe a value you would like to invent.
Optional reading: Nehamas, "The Postulated Author" (JSTOR link -- you need to be on campus).
Apr. 7: Who Is The 'Good European'?
Reading: BGE 223-224, 231-239, 240-251, plus Maudemarie Clark, "Nietzsche's Misogyny" (online reserve), GS 348.
Optional reading: Katsafanas, Agency and the Foundations of Ethics.
Apr. 12: Reading Zarathustra Straight.
Reading: Z Preface, Parts I and II; review GS 360. For today, please pay close attention to Z I.1, I.3, I.4, I.12, I.15, I.17 (the table of contents at Portable Nietzsche pp. 112-114 will save you counting off the sections).
Optional reading, for your amusement: Sharon Wahl, "I Also Dated Zarathustra" (on reserve in the Philosophy Department office).
Apr. 14: How to Redeem a Coke Can.
Reading: For today, please pay close attention to Z II.12, II.15, II.18, II.20. Anderson, "Nietzsche on Redemption and Transfiguration" (online reserve).
Followon reading: Foucault, Madness and Civilization.
Apr. 19: What Does Someone Like This Want with the Meaning of Life?
Reading: Twilight of the Idols (you can count off the contents on p. 464), Preface; 2 ("The Problem of Socrates"); 4 ("How the 'True World' Finally Became a Fable"); 5:5 (this is in "Morality as Anti-Nature"); 6 ("The Four Great Errors"); 8:6 (this is in "What the Germans Lack"); 9:1-26 (this is in "Skirmishes of an Untimely Man"); 10:2 (in "What I Owe to the Ancients); plus The Case of Wagner 7.
Optional reading: Williams, "Nietzsche's Minimalist Moral Psychology" (online reserve).
Apr. 21: The Return of the Eternal Return
Reading: Ecce Homo.
Optional reading: Leonard Sax, "What was the Cause of Nietzsche's Dementia?" (online reserve).
Apr. 26: Crystallization.
Reading: GS Preface; secs. 1, 44, 57-60, 85, 91, 106-107, 120, 124, 125, 153, 236, 269, 270, 276-78, 281, 285, 289-290, 295, 299, 301, 303, 320, 333, 335, 341-43, 354, 373-74.
Optional reading: Robert Pippin, "What Is a Gay Science?" (on reserve in the Philosophy Department). Followon reading: Stendhal, On Love (not on reserve).