Search engine for discovering works of Art, research articles, and books related to Art and Culture
Javascript must be enabled to continue!
Odysseus’ Changed Soul: A Contemporary Reading of the Myth of Er
View through CrossRef
Catherine Malabou’s “Odysseus’ Changed Soul: A Contemporary Reading of the Myth of Er” examines the political and ontological meaning of Odysseus’ choice of a private life in the Myth of Er of Book X of Plato’s Republic. In this Myth, when it is Odysseus’ turn to choose the paradigm of his next life, he picks the life of a private person who minds his own business. This unexpected choice, echoing the philosopher’s return to the Cave in Book VII, gives a model for deconstructing sovereignty without assuming total impotency. Departing from Agamben’s discussions of the homo sacer, Malabou links together the departures and returns of Odysseus, Socrates, and Er. Malabou casts Socrates as the anti-Bartleby, who by means of φρόνησις simultaneously rejects tyranny and complacent impotency.
Title: Odysseus’ Changed Soul: A Contemporary Reading of the Myth of Er
Description:
Catherine Malabou’s “Odysseus’ Changed Soul: A Contemporary Reading of the Myth of Er” examines the political and ontological meaning of Odysseus’ choice of a private life in the Myth of Er of Book X of Plato’s Republic.
In this Myth, when it is Odysseus’ turn to choose the paradigm of his next life, he picks the life of a private person who minds his own business.
This unexpected choice, echoing the philosopher’s return to the Cave in Book VII, gives a model for deconstructing sovereignty without assuming total impotency.
Departing from Agamben’s discussions of the homo sacer, Malabou links together the departures and returns of Odysseus, Socrates, and Er.
Malabou casts Socrates as the anti-Bartleby, who by means of φρόνησις simultaneously rejects tyranny and complacent impotency.
Related Results
The Cyclops
The Cyclops
Odysseus’ blinding of the Cyclops by a combination of μῆτις and βίη continues the debate on the qualities needed for success initiated in the songs of Demodocus. The uncultivated...
Object-Oriented Odysseus
Object-Oriented Odysseus
Odysseus is shown to be a liminal figure, far from home, yet unable to put down roots elsewhere, torn between women, their agent objects, and the potential lives they represent. As...
The Travels of Odysseus
The Travels of Odysseus
Abstract
The Travels of Odysseus employs the theme of travel to explore the Odyssey and its contexts. The book provides an analysis of travel by Odysseus, notably...
Martha Graham's Greek Myth-Based Dances and Her Collaboration with Isamu Noguchi
Martha Graham's Greek Myth-Based Dances and Her Collaboration with Isamu Noguchi
Illuminating an understudied avenue of classical reception in the performing arts, this book considers how the long artistic collaboration between one of the greatest dancers and c...
Paradigms for Odysseus
Paradigms for Odysseus
The poem compares Odysseus with Heracles through shared epithets and exploits (including catabasis and archery), but the Heracles paradigm is discredited by Heracles’ murder of his...
Persephone Myth in Young Adult Fiction
Persephone Myth in Young Adult Fiction
Investigating the widespread but understudied presence of the Persephone myth within 21st-century young adult literature, Cristina Salcedo González analyses six young adult novels ...
Serpents in the Soul
Serpents in the Soul
This chapter discusses Dio Chrysostom’s ‘Libyan myth’, which tells of savage serpent-women who ate any man they found, until they were destroyed by Heracles; Dio explains that this...