Bound by the City
Greek Tragedy, Sexual Difference, and the Formation of the Polis
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Explores the connections between sexual difference and political structure in ancient Greek tragedy.
Description
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.
At Miami University, Denise Eileen McCoskey is Associate Professor of Classics and Affiliate Black World Studies, and Emily Zakin is Associate Professor of Philosophy. Zakin is the coeditor (with Ellen K. Feder and Mary C. Rawlinson) of Derrida and Feminism: Recasting the Question of Woman.
Reviews
"…considers key ancient tragedies and the concept of tragedy itself by means of contemporary Freudian, intertextual and gendered perspectives. In so doing, the collection speaks to the multiple methods of studying classical works and thus of understanding these tragedies as they were then performed and as we experience them now. " — Polis
"This collection, written by distinguished scholars in ancient studies, focuses on the tragic intersection of Athenian civic values and ideas of sexual difference. Unfolding the complexities of the tragedies of the houses of Laius and Atreus, the contributors draw on history, psychoanalysis, and theory to shed new light on how gender defined the culture and politics of the city state. " — Rebecca Bushnell, author of Tragedy: A Short Introduction