Bound by the City : Greek Tragedy, Sexual Difference, and the Formation of the Polis

by Mccoskey, Denise Eileen; Zakin, Emily

• ISBN13: 9781438427119
• ISBN10: 1438427115
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-08-06
• Publisher: State Univ of New York Pr

Summary

This collection offers a vibrant exploration of the bonds between sexual difference and political structure in Greek tragedy. In looking at how the acts of violence and tortured kinship relations are depicted in the work of all three major Greek tragic playwrights--Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides--the contributors shed light on the workings and failings of the Greek polis, and explore the means by which sexual difference and the city take shape in relation to each other. The volume complements and expands the efforts of current feminist interpretations of Antigone and the Oresteia by considering the meanings of tragedy for ancient Athenian audiences while also unveiling the reverberations of Greek tragedy's formulations and dilemmas in modern political life and for contemporary political philosophy.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. vii
Introduction	p. 1
City Farewell!: Genos, Polis, and Gender in Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes and Euripides' Phoenician Women	p. 15
Antigone: The Work of Literature and the History of Subjectivity	p. 47
The Laius Complex	p. 81
Jocasta's Eye and Freud's Uncanny	p. 103
Sexual Difference and the Aporia of Justice in Sophocles' Antigone	p. 119
Tragedy, Natural Law, and Sexual Difference in Hegel	p. 149
Marrying the City: Intimate Strangers and the Fury of Democracy	p. 177
Playing the Cassandra: Prophecies of the Feminine in the Polis and Beyond	p. 197
The Loss of Abandonment in Sophocles' Electra	p. 221
Electra in Exile	p. 247
Orestes and the In-laws	p. 275
List of Contributors	p. 331
Index	p. 335
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