The Antigone complex : ethics and the invention of feminine desire

235 Pages·2004·0.81 MB·English

  

(cid:1)
ultural Memory
in
the
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resent
Mieke Bal and Hent de Vries, Editors

THE ANTIGONE COMPLEX
Ethics and the Invention of Feminine Desire
Cecilia Sjöholm
  
, 

Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
© by the Board of Trustees of the
Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of
Stanford University Press.
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sjöholm, Cecilia.
The Antigone complex : ethics and the invention of feminine desire /
Cecilia Sjöholm.
p. cm.—(Cultural memory in the present)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
---(alk. paper)
. Feminist ethics. . Desire (Philosophy) . Femininity (Philosophy)
. Antigone (Greek mythology) I. Title. II. Series.
.
’.—dc

Original Printing 
Last figure below indicates year of this printing:
         
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction xi
 Morality and the Invention of Feminine Desire 
 Sexuality Versus Recognition: Feminine Desire
in the Ethical Order 
 The Purest Poem...: Heidegger’s Antigone 
 From Oedipus to Antigone: Revisiting the Question
of Feminine Desire 
 Family Politics/Family Ethics: Butler, Lacan, and
the Thing beyond the Object 
Notes 
Bibliography 
Index 

Acknowledgments
Many people have participated in the intellectual work leading to the
completion of this book. I do not have space to list them all, but where
names would be too abundant, I would at least like to point to the con-
texts and places that have served as an inspiration. First of all I would like
to thank the institutions that have generously contributed research fund-
ing: FRN or the Swedish Research Council, the Swedish Institute, and the
Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. The Center for Theoretical Stud-
ies at Essex University, where I have spent a lot of time as a visiting fellow
throughout my writing of this project, proved an extraordinarily fruitful
place to pursue research of this kind. I am particularly grateful to Noreen
Harburt for having lent me her office. The Philosophy Department at De-
Paul University had the kindness to invite me as a visiting professor in
–. The graduate course on Lacan that I gave there, and the response
by the graduate students who attended, was crucial to the development of
the project.
The response from audiences to whom I have had the chance to
present this material has been of great importance: the University of Essex,
University of Memphis, University of Michigan, Middlesex University, the
New School of Social Research, Université de Louvaine, Katholieke Uni-
versiteit Nijmegen, University of Gothenburg, University of Stockholm,
South Stockholm University College, and the Université de Toulouse. I
would particularly like to thank those who invited me to present the ma-
terial: Sara Beardsworth, Peg Birmingham, Fabienne Bruguère, Eva-Lena
Dahl, Bernard Flynn, Philippe van Haute, Peter Osborne, Renata Salecl,
Stella Sandford, and Slavoj Zˇizˇek. Moreover, I would like to thank the col-
leagues who invited me to publish work in progress in reviews such as
Agora, Ny Poetik, New Formations,and Radical Philosophy. Parts of the ma-
terial appeared, at an early stage of elaboration, as a long article in Swedish
in Tingets Imperium(Natur and Kultur, ). The invitations to publish
x Acknowledgments
made this into a better book as did the comments on the texts made by In-
geborg Owesen, Lis Möller, Chris Bremers, Monique David-Ménard, Paul
Moyaert, Veronica Vasterling, Ben Vedder, Stella Sandford and Peter Os-
borne, Renata Salecl, Christian Nilsson, Hent de Vries, and Paola Marrati.
The editors at Stanford University Press—Norris Pope, Tim Roberts,
and Elizabeth Berg—offered crucial help in the final stages toward the re-
alization of this book. Rachel Åkerstedt helped me with the proofreading.
Finally, I am particularly indebted to those who read and discussed this
manuscript simply as friends and colleagues, many of whom are already
mentioned above, but also Karen de Boer, Tina Chanter, Carl-Michael
Edenborg, Claudia Linden, Hans Ruin, Rudi Visker, and Ewa Ziarek. My
gratitude to Philippe van Haute must be singled out, since he encouraged
me to present this manuscript as a doctoral thesis at the department of phi-
losophy at the University of Nijuugen. And all along, since the very incep-
tion of this project, Simon Critchley has been engaged in it, offering fun,
love, and support.