Among the most striking features of Classical tragedy is its women: Antigone, Electra, Medea, Hecuba—all representing figures of subjectivity, modes of address, and styles of being that challenge, at their core, both the self-image of the ancient Greek polis and the very constitution of the political. It’s no surprise, then, that feminist and queer theorists have taken up the tragic heroine to question the very terms of Western political order. Who is—and who isn’t—included in the political community? What is public, and what is private? What is the nature, and what are the limits, of political authority? And why did the tragedians, working within patriarchal confines, conjure women as figures of political contradiction and critique? Do tragic heroines represent the limit of a certain conception of politics? If so, what lies beyond?
In this course, we will engage with both theory and Classical tragedy itself to explore how our understanding of politics and the political is challenged by foregrounding questions of gender, femininity, and female confrontation with the ancient (and contemporary) city’s normative order. Alongside Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, we will read from works by Simone Weil, Nicole Loraux, Judith Butler, Anne Carson, Bonnie Honig, Adriana Cavarero, Tina Chanter and Alenka Zupan.
