This project rethinks the relationship between literary studies, philosophy, and anthropology through a comparative account of the literary work of William Shakespeare (1564-1616) and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832). The participants in this project will place Shakespeare and Goethe within a global framework that aims to study not only each of these authors on their own terms and in relation to each other, but also in the light of their worldwide reception. Drawing on the tradition of philosophical anthropology, we hypothesize that the global status of these authors rests on the anthropological significance of their work. The works of Shakespeare and Goethe constitute anthropologically paradigmatic articulations of human possibility emergent in the historical unfolding of modernity. Building upon an earlier conference in Munich in Spring 2026 (already funded by the Siemens Foundation), our work in Paris will unfold in two phases: first, we will host a conference in Fall 2026 that brings American, German, and French scholars together to study the all but unexplored potential synergies between literary scholarship and philosophical anthropology; and second, we will host a workshop in Fall 2027 that uses the framework developed in 2026 in order to rethink the global reception of Shakespeare and Goethe.