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Sophocles and the Politics of Tragedy

Sophocles and the Politics of Tragedy PDF Author: Jonathan N. Badger
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415625629
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 268

Book Description
Focuses on Sophocles' dramatization of fundamental political impasses and applies these to the competing political theories of Thomas, Bacon and Locke.

Sophocles and the Politics of Tragedy

Sophocles and the Politics of Tragedy PDF Author: Jonathan N. Badger
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415625629
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 268

Book Description
Focuses on Sophocles' dramatization of fundamental political impasses and applies these to the competing political theories of Thomas, Bacon and Locke.

The Tragedy of Political Theory

The Tragedy of Political Theory PDF Author: J. Peter Euben
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069102314X
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 331

Book Description
In this book J. Peter Euben argues that Greek tragedy was the context for classical political theory and that such theory read in terms of tragedy provides a ground for contemporary theorizing alert to the concerns of post-modernism, such as normalization, the dominance of humanism, and the status of theory. Euben shows how ancient Greek theater offered a place and occasion for reflection on the democratic culture it helped constitute, in part by confronting the audience with the otherwise unacknowledged principles of social exclusion that sustained its community. Euben makes his argument through a series of comparisons between three dramas (Aeschylus' Oresteia, Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannos, and Euripides' Bacchae) and three works of classical political theory (Thucydides' History and Plato's Apology of Socrates and Republic) on the issues of justice, identity, and corruption. He brings his discussion to a contemporary American setting in a concluding chapter on Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 in which the road from Argos to Athens, built to differentiate a human domain from the undefined outside, has become a Los Angeles freeway desecrating the land and its people in a predatory urban sprawl.

The Lessons of Tragedy

The Lessons of Tragedy PDF Author: Hal Brands
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300244924
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 183

Book Description
A “brilliant” examination of American complacency and how it puts the nation’s—and the world’s—security at risk (The Wall Street Journal). The ancient Greeks hard-wired a tragic sensibility into their culture. By looking disaster squarely in the face, by understanding just how badly things could spiral out of control, they sought to create a communal sense of responsibility and courage—to spur citizens and their leaders to take the difficult actions necessary to avert such a fate. Today, after more than seventy years of great-power peace and a quarter-century of unrivaled global leadership, Americans have lost their sense of tragedy. They have forgotten that the descent into violence and war has been all too common throughout human history. This amnesia has become most pronounced just as Americans and the global order they created are coming under graver threat than at any time in decades. In a forceful argument that brims with historical sensibility and policy insights, two distinguished historians argue that a tragic sensibility is necessary if America and its allies are to address the dangers that menace the international order today. Tragedy may be commonplace, Brands and Edel argue, but it is not inevitable—so long as we regain an appreciation of the world’s tragic nature before it is too late. “Literate and lucid—sure to interest to readers of Fukuyama, Huntington, and similar authors as well as students of modern realpolitik.” —Kirkus Reviews

Greek Tragedy and Political Philosophy

Greek Tragedy and Political Philosophy PDF Author: Peter J. Ahrensdorf
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139475584
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 193

Book Description
In this book, Peter Ahrensdorf examines Sophocles' powerful analysis of a central question of political philosophy and a perennial question of political life: should citizens and leaders govern political society by the light of unaided human reason or religious faith? Through an examination of Sophocles' timeless masterpieces - Oedipus the Tyrant, Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone - Ahrensdorf offers a sustained challenge to the prevailing view, championed by Nietzsche in his attack on Socratic rationalism, that Sophocles is an opponent of rationalism. Ahrensdorf argues that Sophocles is a genuinely philosophical thinker and a rationalist, albeit one who advocates a cautious political rationalism. Ahrensdorf concludes with an incisive analysis of Nietzsche, Socrates and Aristotle on tragedy and philosophy. He argues, against Nietzsche, that the rationalism of Socrates and Aristotle incorporates a profound awareness of the tragic dimension of human existence and therefore resembles in fundamental ways the somber and humane rationalism of Sophocles.

The Tragedy of American Science

The Tragedy of American Science PDF Author: Clifford D. Conner
Publisher: Haymarket Books
ISBN: 164259203X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 283

Book Description
A look at the destructive history of science-for-profit, including its toll on the US pandemic response, by the author of A People’s History of Science. Despite a facade of brilliant technological advances, American science has led humanity to the brink of interrelated disasters. In The Tragedy of American Science, historian of science Clifford D. Conner describes the dual processes by which this history has unfolded since the Second World War, addressing the corporatization and the militarization of science in the US. He examines the role of private profit considerations in determining the direction of scientific inquiry—and the ways those considerations have dangerously undermined the integrity of sciences impacting food, water, air, medicine, and the climate. In addition, he explores the relationship between scientific industries and the US military, discussing the innumerable financial and human scientific resources that have been diverted from other critical areas in order to further military aggrandizement and technological development. While the underlying problems may appear intractable, Conner compellingly argues that replacing the current science-for-profit system with a science-for-human-needs system is not an impossible utopian dream—and the first step to a better future is grappling with the mistakes of the past.

The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (Updated Edition)

The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (Updated Edition) PDF Author: John J. Mearsheimer
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393076245
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 572

Book Description
"A superb book.…Mearsheimer has made a significant contribution to our understanding of the behavior of great powers."—Barry R. Posen, The National Interest The updated edition of this classic treatise on the behavior of great powers takes a penetrating look at the question likely to dominate international relations in the twenty-first century: Can China rise peacefully? In clear, eloquent prose, John Mearsheimer explains why the answer is no: a rising China will seek to dominate Asia, while the United States, determined to remain the world's sole regional hegemon, will go to great lengths to prevent that from happening. The tragedy of great power politics is inescapable.

Hannah Arendt and the Politics of Tragedy

Hannah Arendt and the Politics of Tragedy PDF Author: Robert Carl Pirro
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780875802688
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Book Description
A German Jewish refugee suffering tremendous personal and political upheaval during the years of Nazi conquest, Hannah Arendt turned to classical literature and drama as she struggled to make sense of the terrible events of her time. Studying fiction, plays, and poetry, she found a way to meld theoretical political philosophy and concrete personal commitment to action. Among her literary resources, the epics and plays of ancient Greece provided the ideal balance of politics and culture. In Hannah Arendt and the Politics of Tragedy, Pirro focuses especially on the influence of Greek tragedy on Arendt's political writings. Pirro casts Arendt's political thought as tragic storytelling, crafted to inspire her audience both to appreciate political freedoms and to act on those freedoms by participating in public life. Echoing an affinity for Greek drama common in the tradition of German philosophy and letters, Arendt draws on tragic characters, scenes, and dramatic conventions, as well as theories, to assess the maddening and often fatal contradictions of political life in modern times. Classical narratives of heroic achievements and failures shape the structure and content of Arendtian thought, as when she compares Jewish refugees' attempts to confront their stateless condition during the 1930s and 1940s to Ulysses's mythical quest. Turning her attention in the postwar years to the promise and limits of political freedom in American life, Arendt invokes Sophocles's last drama, Oedipus at Colonus, in an attempt to outline an alternative, aesthetic sense of political authority in the American Republic. In providing this new avenue of approach to Arendt, Pirro shows how elements of Greek tragedy helped her grapple with the problems of modern politics in the chaos of a universe without rules. Arendt enthusiasts and readers interested in the classics and politics will find fresh ideas to consider in Hannah Arendt and the Politics of Tragedy.

The Inevitability of Tragedy: Henry Kissinger and His World

The Inevitability of Tragedy: Henry Kissinger and His World PDF Author: Barry Gewen
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324004061
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 496

Book Description
A new portrait of Henry Kissinger focusing on the fundamental ideas underlying his policies: Realism, balance of power, and national interest. Few public officials have provoked such intense controversy as Henry Kissinger. During his time in the Nixon and Ford administrations, he came to be admired and hated in equal measure. Notoriously, he believed that foreign affairs ought to be based primarily on the power relationships of a situation, not simply on ethics. He went so far as to argue that under certain circumstances America had to protect its national interests even if that meant repressing other countries’ attempts at democracy. For this reason, many today on both the right and left dismiss him as a latter-day Machiavelli, ignoring the breadth and complexity of his thought. With The Inevitability of Tragedy, Barry Gewen corrects this shallow view, presenting the fascinating story of Kissinger’s development as both a strategist and an intellectual and examining his unique role in government through his ideas. It analyzes his contentious policies in Vietnam and Chile, guided by a fresh understanding of his definition of Realism, the belief that world politics is based on an inevitable, tragic competition for power. Crucially, Gewen places Kissinger’s pessimistic thought in a European context. He considers how Kissinger was deeply impacted by his experience as a refugee from Nazi Germany, and explores the links between his notions of power and those of his mentor, Hans Morgenthau—the father of Realism—as well as those of two other German-Jewish émigrés who shared his concerns about the weaknesses of democracy: Leo Strauss and Hannah Arendt. The Inevitability of Tragedy offers a thoughtful perspective on the origins of Kissinger’s sober worldview and argues that a reconsideration of his career is essential at a time when American foreign policy lacks direction.

Greek Tragedy and Political Theory

Greek Tragedy and Political Theory PDF Author: J. Peter Euben
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520055728
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 334

Book Description


Royal Power and Authority in Shakespeare’s Late Tragedies

Royal Power and Authority in Shakespeare’s Late Tragedies PDF Author: Alisa Manninen
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443884383
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 350

Book Description
William Shakespeare explores political survival as a question of interaction at court in King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra. Through a discussion of authority as an element that is distinct from power, this book offers a new perspective on the importance of acts of persuasion and the contribution the late tragedies make to Shakespeare’s portrayal of monarchy. It argues that the most productive uses of the material power to judge or reward are those that reinforce royal authority and establish the monarch at the centre of the web of noble relationships. In the late tragedies, rulership is exercised at court. It acquires a nature of its own as the interaction of powerful and potentially powerful individuals among the nobility. The persuasive exercise of authority complements the tangible power that is founded on the monarch’s material resources, so that consent to the monarch’s supremacy is obtained through various discourses of justification and the performance of the monarch’s social role. Shakespeare’s combination of emotional intimacy with political concerns becomes central to the tragedies of these three plays when the failure to establish control over power and authority leads to the breakdown of established values and political traditions.