Antigone, Interrupted (in development)
Author: Bonnie Honig
This project is in development. It will be a book about the ways in which Antigone, the heroine of Sophocles' famous 5th centruy play and a nearly universal figure of civil disobedience admired today worldwide by lawyers and activists alike, has been absorbed into a juridical (legal) rather than a democratic (political) frame of (dis)obedience. In this project, I develop a new reading of this ancient play as depicting not a heroic solitary dissident of conscience (the maintream reading), but rather as a political activist who acts in solidarity with (some) others on behalf of a political cause, not on behalf of the mere private, cultural concern with burying her brother (as is usually thought) . The older reading of the play anchors the idea that legal remedies are the best approach for intractable political problems. The reading I develop, justified by contextual 5th century evidence, suggests that even such legal remedies cannot escape the politicality they seek to transcend - through proper procedures, and through resort -- when these fail -- to exceptional measures such as civil disobedience.
Summaries and findings
- Antigone’s Lament, Creon’s Grief: Mourning, Membership and the Institution of Exception
- Sep 10, 2008
All summaries and findings »