- Paperback: 118 pages
- Publisher: Columbia University Press; New edition edition (May 16 2002)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0231118953
- ISBN-13: 978-0231118958
- Product Dimensions: 22.4 x 12.4 x 0.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 204 g
- Average Customer Review: 1.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #408,495 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
Review
Butler is interested in Antigone as a liminal figure between the family and the state, between life and death... but also as a figure, like all her kin, who represents the non-normative family, a set of kinship relations that seems to defy the standard model... one senses in Butler's interest... homage to those who have lived, or have tried to live, and to those who have died 'on the sexual margins.' -- Georgette Fleischer The Nation Antigone's Claim is a work of intricate and detailed analysis of enormously difficult material. Butler masterfully leads us to... a newfound theoretical activism within the political domain. -- Maria Cimitile Hypatia Brief but powerful and provocative nook. -- Shireen R. K. Patell, New York University Signs Winter 2005 Thought-provoking and politically provocative... Bulter joins the great philosophical tradition which grapples with the ancient tragedy of Sophocles. -- Ido Geiger Hagar: Studies in Culture Polity Identities Spring 2005
Book Description
The celebrated author of Gender Trouble here redefines Antigone's legacy, recovering her revolutionary significance and liberating it for a progressive feminism and sexual politics. Butler's new interpretation does nothing less than reconceptualize the incest taboo in relation to kinship -- and open up the concept of kinship to cultural change. Antigone, the renowned insurgent from Sophocles's Oedipus, has long been a feminist icon of defiance. But what has remained unclear is whether she escapes from the forms of power that she opposes. Antigone proves to be a more ambivalent figure for feminism than has been acknowledged, since the form of defiance she exemplifies also leads to her death. Butler argues that Antigone represents a form of feminist and sexual agency that is fraught with risk. Moreover, Antigone shows how the constraints of normative kinship unfairly decide what will and will not be a livable life. Butler explores the meaning of Antigone, wondering what forms of kinship might have allowed her to live. Along the way, she considers the works of such philosophers as Hegel, Lacan, and Irigaray. How, she asks, would psychoanalysis have been different if it had taken Antigone -- the "postoedipal" subject -- rather than Oedipus as its point of departure? If the incest taboo is reconceived so that it does not mandate heterosexuality as its solution, what forms of sexual alliance and new kinship might be acknowledged as a result? The book relates the courageous deeds of Antigone to the claims made by those whose relations are still not honored as those of proper kinship, showing how a culture of normative heterosexuality obstructs our capacity to see what sexual freedom and political agency could be.
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First Sentence
I began to think about Antigone a few years ago as I wondered what happened to those feminist efforts to confront and defy the state. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
I began to think about Antigone a few years ago as I wondered what happened to those feminist efforts to confront and defy the state. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
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Most helpful customer reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
Does this woman know any Greek?,
By A Customer
This review is from: Antigone's Claim: Kinship Between Life and Death (Paperback)
I have located several misquotations and several mispellings of what little Greek she uses. Apart from it being gruesomely written, I suspect this woman does not know Antigone in Greek--she quotes widely from other sources but prefers to stay away from the original. I am tempted to at a later date say with Voltaire "I am sitting in the smallest room of the house. I have your book in front of me--soon it will be behind me"
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
?!,
By A Customer
This review is from: Antigone's Claim: Kinship Between Life and Death (Hardcover)
The question underlying this book is "What would happen if psychoanalysis were to have taken Antigone rather than Oedipus as its point of departure?" (57). It is not a classical discussion about the play itself but a theoretical engagement with issues presented in the play as they have [or have not] been used by other theorists. To engage with this question Butler must address interpretations of the play by Hegel, Lacan, and the incest taboo as it is posited by Levi Strauss. The majority of the book is spent demonstrating how Antigone departs from traditional requirements of kinship through transgression of gender roles, sexual expectations (apparently she desires her dead brother) etc... Butler's real aim is to re-formulate traditional ideas about kinship, incest and gender. She wants to dirupt the traditional interdependence of kinship and state with a politics of transgression. That being said, her reading of the Antigone character is interesting, but tedious at times if you are not a fan of psychoanalysis and/or Hegel. Butler follows her particular reading of these theories fine, but there is no theoretical follow through of her own theory. Butler neglects to tell us what she expects to come out of her reading. The political ramifications of the moves she makes are never made clear. How exactly is Butler defining politics and the state in the first place and what would she like to see them replaced with? Basically this book is a fancy way of discussing the politics of transgression and the need for different kinship and political communities without engaging in a real theoretical discussion of the assumptions embedded in this move. It is an interesting read, but it will probably disappoint both classical readers and contemporary theorists.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
3.2 out of 5 stars (10 customer reviews) 5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Profound work on the legacy of Antigone,
By J. Draper - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Antigone's Claim: Kinship Between Life and Death (Paperback)
Antigone's revolt lives on! As Butler says herself in the introduction, she is not a classicist and has no desire to be one. This book is about the intellectual/artistic legacy of the figure of Antigone and the political and philosophical implications of her performative resistance to state power. Having taken a seminar in 1998 with Butler on the very topic of Antigone, I can assure you that the author is well aware of the ambiguity of Sophocles's play. As Butler demonstrates, this ambiguity is what has driven so many diverse interpretations by major thinkers such as Hegel and Lacan and playwrights like Hoelderlin and Brecht. Butler insightfully analyzes the critical-artistic tradition that has developed since Sophocles and helps to demonstrate this tradition's continued relevance in the present day--in any case where individual desire conflicts with the institution of the state as it functions to set the parameters of the normal or acceptable in society.
12 of 16 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Must Like Hegel & Lacan,
By Dan - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Antigone's Claim: Kinship Between Life and Death (Paperback)
I haven't finished this extremely short text yet. It was originally a small series of lectures. Basically, Butler critiques Hegel's and Lacan's appropriations of Antigone (both the play and, especially, the character) to represent a certain ideal. She summarizes rather lucidly both Hegel's and Lacan's positions. Of course, the problem with both Hegel and Lacan is that they are so dense and (often) obscure that, like Nietzsche, they get appropriated left and right themselves. So understanding what they *really* ever meant is always slippery. But Hegel and Lacan are familiar territory for Butler. She's no Classicist, and she's upfront about that. I think she does a phenomenal job highlighting the ultimately untenable postion(s) Hegel and, to a lesser extent, Lacan assume in relation to Antigone. I haven't finish yet, but Butler is certainly setting up her own "feminist" reading. It's not concerned with "what the Greeks thought" the way classical scholars (by definition) often are. Rather, she's clearly relating Greek tragedy to the modern world in response to the past 300 years of (post)enlightenment thinking. A more recent text that also deals with a lot of this material is The Antigone Complex by Cecilia Sjoholm - if you're interested.
5 of 8 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
very intelligent, ground-breaking book!!!,
By km - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Antigone's Claim: Kinship Between Life and Death (Paperback)
Judith Butler's study of Antigone, over the course of these 3 lectures, yields important and timely insights about how we might understand kinship and love in today's society. Her analysis of Hegel, Levi-Strauss, and Lacan is impressively rigorous. A must read for anyone interested in liguistics, structuralism, feminism and contemporary questions about political belonging.
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