The Seminar Room

For now we'll meet twice a week, for 40 minutes a week for the standard class. Additional, "shared office hours" or "extended discussions" can be added based on interest and need. This is the first session.
If you want to be more engaged, please read:

https://ia600507.us.archive.org/9/items/karl-ameriks-the-cambridge-companion-to-german-idealism/Karl%20Ameriks%20-%20The%20Cambridge%20Companion%20to%20German%20Idealism.pdf

Assigned: Introduction section(Interpreting German Idealism)
Things to focus on: Compression of intellectual leaps, pivotal events(french revolution, romanticism, enlightenment),
Assigned: Strange Minds: German Romanticism and Totality(Michelle Ma/yes, me)-->buy on Amazon or rent using Kindle unlimited for free, kindle version's price is set at 99 cents).
Read--Part 1
Things to focus on: Structuring that enabled German cultural production, Luther as a conterfactual in France, legal system in Germany

If you have any questions message me at any time. I answer all messages.

In this session of The Seminar Room, we will read and discuss Friedrich Schiller’s The Robbers, one of the most explosive and formative works of the Sturm und Drang movement and a dramatic precursor to German Idealism. Written when Schiller was only in his early twenties, the play stages a fierce confrontation between rebellion and law, passion and order, brotherhood and betrayal. Beneath its theatrical intensity lies a philosophical problem that would define an entire intellectual tradition: what does it mean to be free?
At the center of the play is Karl Moor, a brilliant and charismatic young man who turns against corrupt authority and attempts to create a new moral world through sheer force of will. His revolt raises questions that later thinkers such as Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel would systematize: Is freedom the assertion of individual will against society? Or is true freedom found only in rational self-legislation and ethical life? The Robbers dramatizes the dangers of “abstract freedom,” the intoxication of self-assertion unmoored from responsibility, and the tragic consequences of trying to embody moral purity through violence.
We will explore how Schiller’s dramatic imagination anticipates Kant’s idea of autonomy, especially the notion that dignity arises from self-given law rather than impulse. We will also examine how the emotional extremity of Sturm und Drang evolves into the philosophical ambition of German Idealism. How does aesthetic experience educate moral feeling? How does rebellion become philosophy? And what happens when the longing for recognition turns destructive?
The session will include historical framing, close reading of key scenes, and open discussion. No prior background in philosophy is required. Participants are encouraged to bring curiosity and a willingness to grapple with large questions about freedom, responsibility, alienation, and the formation of the self.
Rather than treating The Robbers as merely a youthful melodrama, we will read it as a laboratory of modern subjectivity — a dramatic space in which the modern idea of autonomy is born, tested, and found both exhilarating and terrifying.

Act 2 of Schiller’s The Robbers deepens the moral and psychological conflict that drives the drama. What begins in Act 1 as wounded pride and rebellion now becomes something more dangerous: ideology turning into action.
Karl’s outlaw band moves from romantic defiance into real violence. He discovers that leadership is not simply freedom from authority but a new form of responsibility — one that tests his ideals at every turn. The gap between intention and consequence widens. What does it mean to pursue justice outside the law? Can rebellion remain noble once blood has been shed?
Meanwhile, Franz’s cold rationalism grows more calculating. His manipulation is no longer merely personal; it becomes structural. He begins to reshape reality itself through control, deception, and psychological pressure. In Act 2, Schiller forces us to confront two competing visions of power: the passionate rebel who believes in freedom, and the strategic manipulator who believes in control.
We will explore how this act marks a turning point in the play. The emotional temperature rises, but so does the philosophical depth. Is Karl still a hero? Is Franz merely a villain, or a kind of proto-modern technocrat? How does Schiller stage the tension between feeling and reason, idealism and cynicism, loyalty and self-assertion?
Act 2 shows that revolt is not a single moment of defiance but an unfolding moral experiment — one whose costs become harder to ignore.

In this session, we turn to Act 3 of Friedrich Schiller’s The Robbers, the explosive center of one of the most radical dramas of the German Idealist era.
Up to this point, Karl Moor has styled himself as a champion of freedom—an outlaw animated by righteous fury against corruption and hypocrisy. But in Act 3, the moral ground begins to shift. The emotional intensity deepens. The rhetoric of liberation starts to fracture. What looked like heroic rebellion now reveals darker tensions: pride, theatrical self-consciousness, and the dangerous seduction of absolute freedom.
We will examine how Schiller stages the collision between freedom and law, passion and moral constraint, self-creation and self-destruction. How does Karl’s vision of justice differ from genuine moral autonomy? Is he a proto-Romantic hero, or a warning about revolutionary excess? Where does Schiller allow sympathy—and where does he withdraw it?
Act 3 is also crucial for understanding the play’s philosophical stakes. Beneath the melodrama lies a serious meditation on dignity, recognition, and the limits of self-authorization. What happens when the individual claims the right to remake the world? Can rebellion avoid becoming tyranny?
We will read closely, move carefully through key speeches, and open the discussion to broader themes in German Idealism: freedom, moral law, theatricality, and the longing for totality.
No prior expertise required. Come ready to read, think, and argue.