Antigone's Sisters

On the Matrix of Love

By Lenart Škof

Subjects: Continental Philosophy, Theology, Feminist Philosophy, Gender Studies, Philosophy Of Religion
Series: SUNY series in Theology and Continental Thought
Hardcover : 9781438482736, 248 pages, May 2021
Paperback : 9781438482743, 248 pages, January 2022

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Table of contents

Acknowledgments

Prelude: The Matrix of Love / Ettingerian Matrixial Web

Part I: Cosmology / Theology of Love

1. Antigone / Savitri

2. Metis / Lepa Vida

3. Bethlehemite Concubine / Mary

Interlude: Interval / Time of Love

Part II: Philosophy / Ontology of Love

4. Clara / The Matrix

5. Beyng / Sister

6. Irigaray / Breath

Postlude: Jesus / Antigone

Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Author

An original and innovative exploration of Antigone, femininity, and love in various cosmological, philosophical, and theological contexts.

Description

In Antigone's Sisters, Lenart Škof explores the power of love in our world—stronger than violence and, ultimately, stronger even than death. Focusing on Antigone, Savitri, and Mary, the book offers an investigation into various goddesses and feminine figures from a variety of philosophical, mythological, theological, and literary contexts. The book also elaborates on the feminine aspects of selected concepts from modern philosophical texts, such as the Matrix in Jakob Böhme, Clara in F. W. J. Schelling, beyng in Martin Heidegger, chóra in Jacques Derrida, and breath in Luce Irigaray's thought. Drawing on Bracha M. Ettinger's concept of matrixiality, Škof proposes a new matrixial theory of philosophy, cosmology, and theology of love. Despite its many usages and appropriations, love remains a neglected topic within Western philosophy. With its new interpretation of Antigone and related readings of Irigaray, Kristeva, and Ettinger, Antigone's Sisters aims to identify some of the reasons for this forgetting of love, and to show that it is only love that can bring peace to our ethically disrupted world.

Lenart Škof is Head of the Institute for Philosophical Studies at the Science and Research Center of Koper and Dean at Institutum Studiorum Humanitatis, both in Slovenia. His previous books include Atmospheres of Breathing, coedited with Petri Berndtson, also published by SUNY Press, and Breathing with Luce Irigaray, coedited with Emily A. Holmes.

Reviews

"Using matrixiality as a key concept, Lenart Škof offers an ethical horizon through new insights into Antigone and her genealogical 'sisters,' daringly comparing Antigone's task with Jesus's redemptory mission. The matrixial core of love, reaching the ontological margins of birth and death and inaugurating a matrixial covenant, is the heart of this original conceptualization of an ethical core in the bridging between mythology and theology for our contemporary humanity." — Bracha L. Ettinger, author of The Matrixial Borderspace and Matrixial Subjectivity, Aesthetics, Ethics