The Death of the Character
By Page duBois
This paper takes the opportunity, occasioned by the publication of Bonnie Honig’s profound meditations on the figure of Antigone, to dwell on the implications of the many interpretations of this ancient Greek character in modern and postmodern theory. From Hegel to Honig, we have seen a wide variety of readings of this crucial and excruciated girl, this virgin, this hero, the emblematic female, embodying family for Hegel (Phenomenology, Aesthetics), pure desire for Lacan (1997), queerness for Judith Butler (2002).
Arendtian Questions for Addison’s Cato
By Joy Connolly
What does political theory gain from tragedy? Recent work by Bonnie Honig, Patchen Markell, Richard Halpern, and Tracy Strong pushes back against instrumentalist claims for art that reduce literary texts into moral lessons in how to be sympathetic to the experience of people unlike oneself.
Hegel on Tragedy: Between Feminism and Christianity
By Simon Goldhill
There is an extensive feminist tradition of reading Sophocles’ Antigone within a framework of political theory in response to Hegel’s influential comprehension of the play in the 19th century. More than thirty articles have been published in recent years, and several significant books, in which Antigone, the heroine, has been made an icon and battleground of feminist theory.