ANTIGONISMS / Series of discussions

Law and Justice
Curated by Dionysis Kapsalis

There is no other female figure in ancient Greek drama on a par with Antigone, able to extend to her moral stature and sublimity. She is the heir of Prometheus in the realm of human freedom; the Maiden who willingly descents to Hades sanctifying the cycle of life; the Woman who articulates her discourse against the dominant male discourse.

Nevertheless, this explains why there has been no era that did not bow in awe and respect, admiration and wonder, to the allure of Antigone in philosophy, art, literature, theatre, or music.

The Athens Epidaurus Festival holds a series of lectures and discussions, split into four thematic units (Resistance and Gender, Law and Justice, Performances and Performers, Visions and Revisions), featuring speakers from the entire range of Humanities as well as the world of Theatre, the Arts and Letters.




Law and Justice

“the gods’ unwritten and unfailing laws”


Central to Antigone are the forces of a fierce clash between the law of men and the law of gods, the world of the living and the world of the dead, demos and oikos, polis and genos. The Sophoclean tragedy, regardless of whether it promises a deeper reconciliation between these antitheses or views them as perpetually incompatible, is a source of puzzlement for human episteme and continues to enrich history and anthropology, philosophy and political thought to this day.

 

Speakers

Dimitris J. Kyrtatas, historian, Emeritus Professor, Department of History, Archaeology, and Social Anthropology, University of Thessaly: “Burials in Classical Athens”

Konstantinos A. Papageorgiou, Professor of Philosophy of Law, School of Law, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens: “Obedience to the Laws and the Right to Resistance”.

Georges Faraklas, Professor of Political Philosophy, Department of Political Science and History, Panteion University: “Antigone in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Mind”.

Stefanos Dimitriou, Professor of Political Philosophy, Department of Political Science and History, Panteion University: “The Formidable, Knowledgeable, and All-Inventive Man: The Sophoclean 'Humanism' in Antigone”.

 

Moderated by

Stavros Zoumboulakis, author, President of the Supervisory Board of the National Library of Greece.




PROGRAMME


7 June Resistance and Gender


 

22 June Performances and Performers


 

30 June Law and Justice


 

12 July Visions and Revisions