Bound by the City: Greek Tragedy, Sexual Difference, and the Formation of the Polis

356 Pages·2009·1.04 MB·English

by  Denise Eileen McCoskey

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Bound by the City
SUNY series, Insinuations:
Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, Literature
Charles Shepherdson, editor
Bound by the City
Greek Tragedy, Sexual Difference,
and the Formation of the Polis
Edited by
Denise Eileen McCoskey
Emily Zakin
Published by
State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2009 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever
without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic,
electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Production by Ryan Morris
Marketing by Michael Campochiaro
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bound by the city : Greek tragedy, sexual difference, and the formation of the
polis / edited by Denise Eileen McCoskey, Emily Zakin.
p. cm.—(Insinuations : philosophy, psychoanalysis, literature)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4384-2711-9 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Greek drama (Tragedy)—History and criticism. 2. Gender identity in
literature. 3. Gender identity—Greece. 4. Literature and society—Greece.
5. City-states—Greece. I. McCoskey, Denise Eileen,1968– II. Zakin, Emily.
PA3136.B66 2009
882'.0109 353—dc22 2008048482
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
Denise Eileen McCoskey and Emily Zakin
Chapter 1 City Farewell!: Genos, Polis, and
Gender in Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes and
Euripides’ Phoenician Women 15
Peter Burian
Chapter 2 Antigone: The Work of Literature and
the History of Subjectivity 47
Charles Shepherdson
Chapter 3 The Laius Complex 81
Mark Buchan
Chapter 4 Jocasta’s Eye and Freud’s Uncanny 103
David Schur
Chapter 5 Sexual Difference and the Aporia of Justice
in Sophocles’ Antigone 119
Victoria Wohl
Chapter 6 Tragedy, Natural Law, and
Sexual Difference in Hegel 149
Elaine P. Miller
Chapter 7 Marrying the City: Intimate Strangers and
the Fury of Democracy 177
Emily Zakin
vi Contents
Chapter 8 Playing the Cassandra: Prophecies of
the Feminine in the Polis and Beyond 197
Pascale-Anne Brault
Chapter 9 The Loss of Abandonment in Sophocles’ Electra 221
Denise Eileen McCoskey
Chapter 10 Electra in Exile 247
Kirk Ormand
Chapter 11 Orestes and the In-laws 275
Mark Griffi th
List of Contributors 331
Index 335
Acknowledgments
The editors wish first and foremost to thank our contributors for their
energy and persistence in advancing the vision of this volume and bring-
ing it to its final, provocative form. The volume was first conceived
when we co-taught an honors course on “Women, Representation, and
the State” at Miami University in the fall of 2001; we are grateful to the
Honors Program at Miami for that opportunity and to the students in
that original seminar. We would also like to offer our gratitude to Miami
University for enabling us to host a conference on “Antigone’s Dilemma:
Gender, Greek Tragedy, and the City-State” in the fall of 2003. For their
support of this event we thank, in particular, the departments of Clas-
sics and Philosophy; the Harry T. Wilks Leadership Institute; the Sigma
Chi/William P. Huffman Scholar-in-Residence Program; the College
of Arts and Science; the Center for American and World Cultures; the
departments of Comparative Religion, French and Italian, History,
Political Science, Theatre, Educational Leadership, and English; the
Etheridge Center for Reflective Leadership; the Graduate School and
its Office for the Advancement of Research and Scholarship; the Hon-
ors Program; the International Studies Program; the Women’s Studies
Program; the Office of the Provost; and the Women’s Center. We are
grateful as well to the participants at that conference for their wonder-
ful papers and for the many discussions and conversations that further
inspired this work. Publication of this volume would not be possible
without the financial support of the departments of Classics and Philos-
ophy, the College of Arts and Science, the Office for the Advancement
of Research and Scholarship, and the Graduate School at Miami, so we
extend to them our sincere thanks. Finally, we would like to express our
deepest gratitude to Charles Shepherdson for his great enthusiasm for
this project and his many efforts on our behalf, as well as James Peltz,
Jane Bunker, and Ryan Morris at SUNY Press for their stewardship of
the volume and Susan Colberg for the striking cover design.
vii