Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Faculty of Language, Literature and Humanities - Institut für Klassische Philologie, HU Berlin

"The Feminine Turn - A Two-Days Research Seminar on Sophocles' Antigone" on June 29 and 30

On the 29th and 30th of June 2023, the GRK 2638 "Normativity Critique Change" in collaboration with the departments of Religious Studies at the FU and of Classics at the HU will host a two-days research seminar on Sophocles’ Antigone. Participants are Giulia Sissa, Diana Librandi, Susanne Gödde, Marta Lietti, Giulia Maria Chesi, Giacomo Scavello, Marcela Ristorto, Silvia Reyes and Clara Racca. For a more detailed presentation of the close reading of Antigone which will take place, followed by large discussion of approximately 45 minutes, please refer to the program linked here.

The seminar is the first event presented by the international research group The Feminine Turn. Organizers are Giulia Maria Chesi, lecturer at the Humboldt Universität, and Marta Lietti, doctoral student from GRK. For the online streaming, please register via thefeminineturn@gmail.com.

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The Feminine Turn is an international research group. It initiates a cooperation between Berlin (Humboldt Universität/ Classics; Freie Universität/ Religious Studies), Utrecht (Universiteit Utrecht, Philosophy and Religious Studies), California (University of California, Los Angeles/ Political Science; California State University, Long Beach/ Classics) and Argentina (Universidad Nacional de Rosario/ Humanities and Arts, Program of Literature & Linguistics).

The Feminine Turn aims at reassessing the ethical, political, and epistemological value of female agency in Graeco-Roman fictive and scientific literature, and its reception in the Renaissance, by queering the canonical boundaries of female and male. Within this frame of investigation, The Feminine Turn sets out to challenge a long tradition of literary criticism deeply enrooted in dichotomic power discourses of male vs. female, which famously include the opposition of authority vs. inferiority, rationality vs. irrationality, domination vs. subjugation, activity vs. passivity, among others. By disentangling the normativity of male vs. female, The Feminine Turn opens up a space in which we might begin to explore how the fe/male voice in ancient classical texts informs practices of bodily pleasures, shared vulnerability, mutual understanding, and empathetic dialogue within communities and interpersonal relationships.