"What is freedom?" Asks Hannah Arendt in relation to a series of
meditations on vita activia, the life of action. She extracts a theory
of action in her rereading of Aristotle's original distinction between
action and deliberation, only to find freedom in the performative act of
deliberation. Politics as performed in polis is the theatre, the
bounded space of appearance, for freedom. Freedom is politics, inasmuch
as politics is an act of appearance, a presence, a birth. Against this
background we can read the act of Antigone. Antigone acts , freely
although she finds it aligned with the divine, but it is neither within
the boundary of the city nor in constitution of it. In fact, the tragedy
in its bounded relationship to death is indeed the ending act, even as
the last of a trilogy. In contrast to Arendt's freedom which is always
already imbedded in the condition of natality, "the human condition,"
the death of Antigone ends all, but the political. It becomes of the
constituting texts of political philosophy, of the theatre of politics.
The birth in death is the possibility that Arendt never considered. Let
us hope to inquire it.
To be presented by: Setareh Shohadai
Note: please do read Antigone if you haven't already.
Reading list:
--------------------
1. Antigone, Sophocles
http://www.royaltyfreeplays.com/greek-drama/Antigone.pdf
2. هانا آرنت: آزادی چیست؟
http://zamaaneh.com/library/cat_11/
3. ادعای آنتیگونه، جودیت باتلر
http://www.mindmotor.info/Mind/?p=2343
Time: Thursday, August 16 · 6:30pm - 8:30pm
Location: SITE 5084, University of Ottawa
Language: Persian · Admission: Free
