March 2010 Archives

Today students from my Fall 2009 Philosophy 20, Ancient Greek Philosophy, course present a short video that seeks to express something of the learning community that grew when we did all our writing in the course in public on a course blog.  (The students posted the video on the course blog as well.)

All the words spoken on the video were written on the blog during the semester.  I am grateful to Cody Yashinski, Pam Dorian, Jordan Sanford and Joni Noggle for helping to conceive and produce this video, and to Tony Arnold, Anthony Zirpoli, Daniel Mininger, Sam MacDonald and Marina McCoy for participating.

Consider the following two passages, written in the wake of the enormous technological advances of the early 20th century:

"Technology is ... no mere means. Technology is a way of revealing.  If we give heed to this, then another whole realm for the essence of technology will open itself up for us.  It is the realm of revealing, i.e., of truth."

• Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology, 1949-50.

"During long periods of history, the mode of human sense perception changes with humanity's entire mode of existence."

• Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, 1936

Yesterday I presented a version of my paper on Antigone, Oedipus and Ismene to the Philosophy Department's Philosophy Research Colloquia at Penn State.

It was great to see so many Penn State Philosophy graduate students in attendance for a talk scheduled on Friday afternoon prior to spring break. The discussion afterward was very helpful to me as I continue to develop my book project on patriarchal politics.

I thought I might mention a few points from our discussion I intend to integrate into the revised paper in the hope that students and faculty and who were unable to attend or ask questions might contribute something here.

For those who were not there or who want a reminder about the content of the paper, I have a brief abstract on my Sophocles in Utah post from last November.

Kristeva and Abjection
Kristeva's conception of abjection should be pursued into the second and third moments of touching treated in the paper so that the political significance of Oedipus's abjection is amplified

I want to articulate more clearly the way the brother/father and sister/daughter ambiguity offers us a way to think a kind of political subjectivity that is non-dominational. Here something of Kristeva's suggestions about the incest taboo might be introduced.

Touch and Sight
The emphasis on touch in relation to sight will more clearly resist the tendency to fall into a simple dichotomy between the two that privileges touch over sight. In this regard, reading Ismene and Antigone as "supports of light" might help me think through how of the meaning of sight is transformed by Oedipus's blindness.

I intend to trace this transformation: when the sight of sovereign authority recognizes itself as blind, becomes blind, another possibility for vision emerges: Antigone sight involves seeing for herself and for others. Tracing this will need to focus on specific instances in the text where she sees for him - as when she describes Ismene's arrival. This might be thought in terms of ethical insight.

With regard to touch, I will need to emphasize more clearly the double meaning of reciprocity: mutual recognition can turn quickly into a grasping violence. The notion of justice as reciprocity can fall easily into the notion of justice as retribution.

I welcome other suggestions, feedback and insights in the comments below.