Hegel General

Having never read Hegel, is Stephen Houlgate's introduction the best way to proceed?
What would be the prerequisite reading in order to comprehend Phenomenology, or Science of Logic (the texts I'm primarily interested in)? Are there any good lectures on youtube to help understand his philosophy and works?

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archive.org/details/LectureCourseInHegelsPhenomenologyOfSpirit
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bump, reading Phenomenology now with Findlay's analysis.

A few general tips:

1) Realize now that the thesis-antithesis-synthesis structure is found in Ficthe and not Hegel, and applying it to Hegel is going to fuck your reading up. Hegel mentioning triads of any type (say, in his Philosophy of Art) shouldn't be construed in the standard formulation of Hegel's dialectic.

2) Gregory Sadler has an entire series on Hegel's Phenomenology called "Half Hour Hegel". I think he's just about halfway done with the book so far. Check it out. I don't like the format or the style much myself, but maybe you will.

3) Don't focus on dialectics or anything, except to the extent that they appear in Hegel. The dialectical method is A method Hegel employs, but not THE ONLY method.

4) Houlgate is fine. If you want a background in German Idealism (or, in case you're familiar with the tradition, want to engage with a great interpreter of German Idealists and a fine philosopher) and NOT Hegel, check out Beiser's 'German Idealism: The Struggle Against Subjectivism'.

5) Check out this thread: reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/53vu4y/how_to_study_hegel_and_get_him/

The top voted comment by Wokeupabug should be listened to, I'd argue, uncritically. He's a really knowledgable guy and knows his stuff concerning Hegel.

6) Hegel, in my view, provides novel responses to problems concerning Solipsism, the divison of the world into subject and object, practical and pure reason and their possible intersection and mutual dependence, skepticism, knowledge formation and acquisition, being and becoming in-themselves, and many more things. He's not merely a predecessor to Marx, in case that's why you're reading him. He's, quite simply, one of the towering giants of philosophy.

Thanks, that's all quite helpful.
Getting along with Phenomenology just fine with Findlay's analysis.
Does nobody else want to discuss this guy?

Having read Kant and Hume (Kant especially) along with Plato and Aristotle is an excellent starting point. Understanding the differences and commonalities between both pairs is helpful to understand where Hegel comes from. If you can't do that because of time, then check out the Stanford Encyclopedia Of Philosophy (heretofore referred to as SEPh to distinguish it from the SEP, a Trot party) and its articles on them. While no real substitute for reading said authors (the former of whom together updated philosophical discourse from the days of Plato and Aristotle, respectively corresponding to Kant and Hume), the SEPh's thorough enough to give a cursory understanding necessary to grasp Hegel.
I personally distrust reading guides to philosophy-oriented books and would only recommend using them to clarify particular parts or on the second pass of reading a book because they have a tendency to reinforce and spread the writer of the guide's own potential misunderstandings of a philosopher in question, but that's me. With Plato->Kant->Hegel, they're all very linear in thought process and idealist, so understanding how a writer reaches a particular conclusion can be very helpful to getting the bigger picture.
In some sense, it could be argued that Hegel is more a theologian than a philosopher. Whereas philosophers pursue knowledge for love of it, Hegel declares at the end of "Phenomenology Of The Spirit" to have completed his project and discovered the answer. There is definitely a relation between the eschatology of a Christian existentialism a la Dostoevsky and the conclusion of Hegel's dialectical development throughout the work. I couldn't help but notice some eerie similarities between "Phenomenology Of The Spirit" and "Crime And Punishment", even though I've never read Aquinas or any other theologian.
Oh, and ignore AW. He doesn't actually read Hegel. He should be here any second now. You'll know that he has arrived by the very loud autistic screeching noise punctuated intermittently by calls of "Reddit>Holla Forums" and the soft murmur of dick slobbering.

phenomology, son. It breaks down dialects best.

Houlgate is good. Alan White is good. James Kreines is good. Winfield is good.

Start with the Logic, read the prefaces, work through chapter 1 and two yourself. Swing over to the Phenomenology after that and be amazed at how fucking clear it is once you've figured out the method and gained the practice of how to do it yourself.

Also, my blog: empyreantrail.wordpress.com/

And muh vids:
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRUSi_5LZI1n-VWcQYvSIRUPnZnrozW6P

You don't need much background for Hegel. Really, all you need is autistic curiosity and determination to think.

There are two good full courses on reading the Phenomenology, complete with notes and book recommendations.

1. Bernstein Tapes bernsteintapes.com/hegellist.html
This is a recording of Bernstein's lectures from 2006.

2. Lecture course on Phenomenology by Richard Winfield archive.org/details/LectureCourseInHegelsPhenomenologyOfSpirit
Recording from 2011.
He uses the Terry Pinkard translation terrypinkard.weebly.com/phenomenology-of-spirit-page.html

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start with the greeks