Whose Antigone? : the tragic marginalization of slavery / Tina Chanter.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Chanter, Tina, 1960-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sophocles. Antigone.

Sophocles.

Slavery in literature.

Antigone (Mythological character)--In literature.

Antigone.

Feminism in literature.

Physical Description:

xli, 233 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Albany : State University of New York Press, [2011]

Summary:

One of Chanter's (philosophy, DePaul U.) goals here, she says, is to reread Sophocles' Oedipal cycle, challenging some of the fundamental tenets that have come to specify its founding role in literature, philosophy, and psychoanalytic thinking. She contends that there is another discourse in which the cycle is implicated, a discourse in which definitions of citizenship, political rights, foreigner, slavery, and enemies are writ large. It reflects an Athenian culture supported by a fledgling but limited democracy that is trying to assert its dominance in the face of its enemies, she says. Annotation ©2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Contents:

1 Introduction: The Shadowy Others of Antigone's Legacy 1

2 Antigone's Liminality: Hegel's Racial Purification of Tragedy and the Naturalization of Slavery 29

Hegel's Prohibition of Slavery as a Tragic Topic 31

Sculpting Antigone's Ethics from the Gods of "Nature" 38

The Simplicity, Solidity, and Plasticity of Tragic Heroes in a Pre-Legal Era 45

Art Must Be Purer than Life 48

3 The Performative Politics and Rebirth of Antigone in Ancient Greece and Modern South Africa: The Island 57

The Incessant Renaissance of Antigone 57

Performative and Political Reflections on Greek Tragedy 61

Intervening in Fetishistic Readings of Antigone 66

Antigone's "False Titties": The Island 74

Concluding Remarks 83

4 Exempting Antigone from Ancient Greece: Multiplying and Racializing Genealogies in Tègònni: An African Antigone 87

Buder and Mader: Making Polynices Only a Brother 91

Citizens, Substitutes, and Slaves 102

A Story to Pass On? Antigone's Mythological African Sister, Tègònni 106

5 Agamben Antigone, Irigaray: The Fetishistic Ruses of Sovereignty in Contemporary Politics 119

6 Concluding Reflections: What If Oedipus or Polynices Had Been Slaves? 133.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781438437552

1438437552

9781438437545

1438437544

OCLC:

669269876