Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-75dct Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-01T10:05:58.629Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sibling Logic; or, Antigone Again

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Stefani Engelstein
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A recent wave of commentary on Sophocles's Antigone by critics from Judith Butler to Bracha Ettinger to Simon Goldhill has begun to emerge from the shadow of two paradigmatic interpretations: Lacan's reading of the title character in splendid structural isolation and Hegel's dialectical opposition of familial and political spheres. Even the newer criticism, however, continues the critical elision of Antigone's siblings (particularly her sister, Ismene) and of her relationship to them. This oversight is emblematic of the problematic omission of the sibling from theoretical discourses in general. The neglected sibling is a model that allows us to move beyond both self-other dualisms and the mother-child dyad, which form the only grounds for intersubjectivity in contemporary debates. Sibling logic recognizes the subject as embedded in a transsubjective network of partial others, whose subjectivities are nonetheless partially, though differentially, shared. This article thereby provides a new approach to poststructuralist debates on subjectivity and the political.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 126 , Issue 1 , January 2011 , pp. 38 - 54
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Benjamin, Jessica. The Bonds of Love: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and the Problem of Domination. New York: Pantheon, 1988. Print.Google Scholar
Benjamin, Jessica. Shadow of the Other: Intersubjectivity and Gender in Psychoanalysis. New York: Routledge, 1998. Print.Google Scholar
Blundell, Mary Whitlock. Helping Friends and Hurting Enemies: A Study in Sophocles and Greek Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1989. Print.10.1017/CBO9780511586170CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butler, Judith. Antigone's Claim: Kinship between Life and Death. New York: Columbia UP, 2000. Print.Google Scholar
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge, 1990. Print.Google Scholar
Butler, Judith. Giving an Account of Oneself. New York: Fordham UP, 2005. Print.10.5422/fso/9780823225033.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Castoriadis, Cornelius. “Aeschylean Anthropology and Sophoclean Self-Creation of Anthropos.” Agon, Logos, Polis: The Greek Achievement and Its Aftermath. Ed. Arnason, Johann P. and Murphy, Peter. Stuttgart: Steiner, 2001. 138–54. Print.Google Scholar
Coles, Prophecy. The Importance of Sibling Relationships in Psychoanalysis. London: Karmac, 2003. Print.Google Scholar
Dawe, Roger David, ed. Sophocles: The Classical Heritage. New York: Garland, 1996. Print.Google Scholar
Dean, Tim. Beyond Sexuality. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2000. Print.Google Scholar
Elden, Stuart. “The Place of the Polis: Political Blindness in Judith Butler's Antigone's Claim.” Theory and Event 8.1 (2005): n. pag. Project Muse. Web. 22 July 2010.Google Scholar
Ettinger, Bracha. The Matrixial Borderspace. Ed. Massumi, Brian. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2006. Print.Google Scholar
Ettinger, Bracha. “Transgressing with-in-to the Feminine.” Differential Aesthetics: Art Practices, Philosophy and Feminist Understandings. Ed. Florence, Penny and Foster, Nicola. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000. 184–209. Print.Google Scholar
Freud, Sigmund. “Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego.” “Beyond the Pleasure Principle,” “Group Psychology” and Other Works. Ed. and trans. Strachey, James. London: Hogarth, 1955. 65–144. Print. Vol. 18 of The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud.Google Scholar
Goethe, Goethe Johann Wolfgang. “From the Conversations of Goethe with Eckermann and Soret.” Dawe 171–77.Google Scholar
Goldhill, Simon. “Antigone and the Politics of Sisterhood.” Zajko and Leonard 141–61.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199237944.003.0006CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gourgouris, Stathis. Does Literature Think? Literature as Theory for an Antimythical Era. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2003. Print.Google Scholar
Grene, David, trans. Antigone. Sophocles 159–212.Google Scholar
Grene, David. Introduction. Sophocles 1–8.Google Scholar
Grene, David, trans. Oedipus at Colonus. Sophocles 77–157.Google Scholar
Griffith, Mark, ed. Antigone. By Sophocles. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999. Print. Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics.Google Scholar
Griffith, Mark, ed. “Commentary.” Griffith, Antigone 119–355.Google Scholar
Hegel, Hegel Georg Wilhelm. Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art. Trans. T. M. Knox. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1974. Print.Google Scholar
Hegel, Hegel Georg Wilhelm. Enzyklopädie der Philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse. 1830. Ed. Wolfgang Bonsiepen and Hans-Christian Lucas. Hamburg: Meiner, 1992. Print. Vol. 20 of Gesammelte Werke.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hegel, Hegel Georg Wilhelm. Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts. Stuttgart: Fromann, 1964. Print. Vol. 7 of Sämtliche Werke. Ed. Hermann Glockner.Google Scholar
Hegel, Hegel Georg Wilhelm. Phänomenolgie des Geistes. Ed. Bonsiepen, Wolfgang and Heede, Reinhard. Hamburg: Meiner, 1980. Print. Vol. 9 of Gesammelte Werke.10.28937/978-3-7873-3389-9CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hegel, Hegel Georg Wilhelm. Phenomenology of Spirit. Trans. A. V. Miller. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1977. Print.Google Scholar
Heidegger, Martin. Hölderlin's Hymn “The Ister.” Trans. William McNeill and Julia Davis. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1991. Print.Google Scholar
Heidegger, Martin. Introduction to Metaphysics. Trans. Gregory Fried and Richard Polt. New Haven: Yale UP, 2000. Print.Google Scholar
Hölderlin, Friedrich. “Antigonae.” Sämtliche Werke und Briefe. Vol. 2. Ed. Jochen Schmidt. Frankfurt am Main: Deutscher Klassiker, 1994. 859–912. Print.Google Scholar
Irigaray, Luce. Speculum of the Other Woman. Trans. Gillian G. Gill. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1985. Print.Google Scholar
Irigaray, Luce. This Sex Which Is Not One. Trans. Catherine Porter. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1985. Print.Google Scholar
Irigaray, Luce. The Way of Love. Trans. Heidi Bostic and Stephen Pluháček. London: Continuum, 2002. Print.Google Scholar
Jacobs, Carol. “Dusting Antigone.” MLN 111.5 (1996): 890–917. Project Muse. Web. 22 July 2010.10.1353/mln.1996.0079CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacques, Lacan. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis: 1959–1960. Trans. Dennis Porter. New York: Norton, 1992. Print. Vol. 7 of The Seminar of Jacques Lacan. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller.Google Scholar
Jacques, Lacan. “The Family Complexes.” Trans. Carolyn Asp. Critical Texts 5.3 (1983): 12–29. Print.Google Scholar
Leonard, Miriam. “Lacan, Irigaray, and Beyond: Antigones and the Politics of Psychoanalysis.” Zajko and Leonard 121–40.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199237944.003.0005CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lloyd-Jones, Hugh, ed. and trans. Oedipus at Colonus. By Sophocles. Sophocles II. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1994. 409–599. Print. Loeb Classical Lib. 21.Google Scholar
Loraux, Nicole. Born of the Earth: Myth and Politics in Athens. Trans. Selina Stewart. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2000. Print.Google Scholar
Miller, Paul Allen. “The Classical Roots of Poststructuralism: Lacan, Derrida, and Foucault.” International Journal of the Classical Tradition 5.2 (1998): 204–26. Print.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Juliet. Siblings: Sex and Violence. Cambridge: Polity, 2003. Print.Google Scholar
Martha, Nussbaum. The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1986. Print.Google Scholar
Pollock, Griselda. “Beyond Oedipus: Feminist Thought, Psychoanalysis, and Mythical Figuration of the Feminine.” Zajko and Leonard 121–39.Google Scholar
Rabinowitz, Nancy Sorkin, and Auanger, Lisa, eds. Among Women: From the Homosocial to the Homoerotic in the Ancient World. Austin: U of Texas P, 2002. Print.Google Scholar
Rose, Jacqueline. Sexuality in the Field of Vision. London: Verso, 1986. Print.Google Scholar
Rosenfield, Kathrin. “Getting inside Sophocles' Mind through Hölderlin's Antigone.” New Literary History 30.1 (1999): 107–27. Print.Google Scholar
Schadewaldt, Wolfgang. “Hölderlin's Translations.” Dawe 101–10.Google Scholar
Schlegel, August Wilhelm. “Life and Political Character of Sophocles: Character of His Different Tragedies.” Trans. John Black. Dawe 159–70.Google Scholar
Schor, Naomi. Breaking the Chain: Women, Theory, and French Realist Fiction. New York: Columbia UP, 1985. Print.10.7312/scho90512CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schor, Naomi. Reading in Detail: Aesthetics and the Feminine. New York: Methuen, 1987. Print.Google Scholar
Sjöholm, Cecilia. The Antigone Complex: Ethics and the Invention of Feminine Desire. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2004. Print.Google Scholar
Sophocles. Sophocles I: Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone. Trans. David Grene. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1991. Print. Complete Greek Tragedies.Google Scholar
Stafford, Barbara Maria. Visual Analogy: Consciousness as the Art of Connecting. Cambridge: MIT P, 2001. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steiner, George. Antigones. New York: Oxford UP, 1984. Print.Google Scholar
Weir, Allison. Sacrificial Logics: Feminist Theory and the Critique of Identity. New York: Routledge, 1996. Print.Google Scholar
Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One's Own. San Diego: Harcourt, 1981. Print.Google Scholar
Vanda, Zajko, and Leonard, Miriam, eds. Laughing with Medusa: Classical Myth and Feminist Thought. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2006. Print.Google Scholar
Zeitlin, Froma. “Thebes: Theater of Self and Society in Athenian Drama.” Nothing to Do with Dionysus? Athenian Drama in Social Context. Ed. Winkler, John and Zeitlin, . Princeton: Princeton UP, 1990. 130–67. Print.Google Scholar