Letter From the Editor

Dear Readers,

We bring you several special pieces in this issue of The Journal of Nietzsche Studies. Our three articles, all of which take up themes of suffering, nihilism, and loneliness in Nietzsche’s work, remind us of his lifelong struggle against the pessimistic worldview that was, among other things, Schopenhauer’s legacy and the hallmark of his system. All three examinations deepen our understanding of the affirmation of life on Nietzsche’s terms. “The Wisdom of Silenus,” by Katie Brennan (Temple University), is published as the winner of the 2017 R. J. Hollingdale Memorial Prize, selected by members of the executive committee of the Friedrich Nietzsche Society of Great Britain from among candidate submissions authored by participants at their annual workshop, recently held at Bath Spa University (September 2017).

In addition, we bring you the third of three installments in an important exchange on truth, falsification, and Nietzsche’s perspectivism, in which Alexander Nehamas (Princeton University) replies to criticism advanced by Maudemarie Clark (University of California, Riverside) in the last issue of the journal (JNS 49.1) in response to Professor Nehamas’s original article in JNS 48.3. Thanks to both authors for their participation in a lively, ongoing conversation on a topic so central to our understanding of Nietzsche’s mature philosophical work.

Finally, in a special section of this issue, we bring you a series of short reflections on “Nietzsche Studies Now.” The editorship invited some of the most influential voices in Nietzsche studies to speak to what topics and questions, and what methods and principles, should shape the scholarship in the years to come. We present ten of the responses here, in hopes that the readership will find these meditations insightful, inspiring, even provocative, and that some of them may be the seed of valuable future work on Nietzsche’s thought and legacy.

Yours truly,
Jessica N. Berry