Sophocles’ Antigone 1

“I am no man”

2

Agenda

Problems (cont’d) …Gender, Sexuality, Values, IdeologyShape of Course

Where, When, What, HowSophocles’ Antigone

Background, Approaches, IssuesDiscussion

Gender, Values, Power

29-Aug

3

Problems (cont’d) …

Gender, Sexuality, Values, Ideology

29-Aug

429-Aug

Issues / Thinkers

Essentialism ConstructionismFoucaultButler

Finnis Nussbaum

5

Shape of Course

Where, When, What, How

29-Aug

Mediterranean Sea

Rome

Greek WorldItaly

Athens

Roman Empire ca. 116 CE

29-Aug

1,000 BCE 1,000 CE

Greece, 550: BCE–CE 200

Rome, 200 BCE–125 CE

Trojan War ca. 1,200 BCE

Rome founded 753 BCE

Athenian democracy 400s–300s B.C.

Roman Republic, Empire510 BCE–CE 476

Periods covered in course

When…

29-Aug

829-Aug

What (cont.)

Greece v. RomeModernity v. antiquityCONTINUITY V. SINGULARITY

929-Aug

How? Through Critical…

ReadingThinkingWriting

Papers Journals

Sophocles’ Antigone

Background, Approaches, Issues

1129-Aug

Background

Playwright and playHouse of Labdacus

genealogy…Oedipus and aftermath…

Oedipus the King (after 429)Oedipus at Colonus (ca. 406)Antigone (442/1)

Oedipus and Antigone

13

Ideological Oppositions

29-Aug

ANTIGONEthesis

femaleprivate

insideoikos (family, household, kinship)

lamentationdivine law

CREONantithesismalepublicoutsidepolis (politics, city)

retributionhuman law

14

Issues

Play as evidence (historically situated?) (ahistorical-universal?)

For …sexualitygender

29-Aug

1529-Aug

Approaches

Hegelian dialectic thesis, antithesis → synthesis

Lacanian psychoanalysispure desireheroic transgression

Judith Butlernext week…

16

Discussion

Gender, Values, Power

29-Aug

17

Discussion Focus

29-Aug

Clashing moral imperatives?

Power struggle?

Castration anxiety?

Other?

“I am no man and she the man insteadif she can have this conquest without

pain” (Creon, p. 175).