Sophocles Antigone

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Sophocles Antigone

• A Heroine for Whose Time?...

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Agenda

• Course
• Aims, Communication, Oral Reports
• Sophocles Antigone
• Background, Approaches, Issues
• Sexuality/Gender in Antigone

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Course

• Aims, Communication, Oral Reports

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Sophocles Antigone

• Background, Approaches, Issues

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Background

• Playwright and play
• House of Labdacus
• genealogy
• Oedipus and aftermath
• Oedipus the King
• Oedipus at Colonus
• Antigone

Oedipus and Antigone
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Myth Background House of Labdacus
Labdacus
Menoeceus
Laius
Jocasta
Creon
Eurydice
Oedipus
Jocasta
Polynices
Eteocles
Ismene
Antigone
Haemon
Megareus
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Approaches

• Hegelian dialectic
• thesis, antithesis ? synthesis
• Lacanian psychoanalysis
• pure desire
• heroic transgression
• Judith Butler
• next time

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Gendered Antinomies

• ANTIGONE
• thesis
• female
• private
• inside
• oikos (family, household, kinship)
• lamentation
• divine law

• CREON
• antithesis
• male
• public
• outside
• polis (politics, city)
• retribution
• human law

CREONI am not the man, not now she is the man
/ if this victory goes to her and she goes free
(p. 65)
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Issues

• Play as evidence
• (historically situated?)
• (ahistorical-universal?)
• for
• sexuality
• gender
• What does
• Antigone model/embody?
• Creon?

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Sexuality/Gender in Antigone
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Your turn What is

• Sexuality?
• traits not specific to biological sex
• sex not same as sexuality
• choice (free will)
• sexual preference

• Gender?
• male v female
• biological sex
• role, self-presentation
• blur lines