The Antigone Inquiry Session 2

Inquiry Panel - Brief

You are an inquiry panel, which the city-state of Thebes has set up to look into the events that led to the deaths of Antigone, Haemon, and Eurydice. Your role in this session is to question some expert witnesses about important issues to take into account when considering your verdict. Your ultimate aim is to determine the causes of this tragic sequence of events, and make recommendations to prevent such a catastrophe from happening again.

During the hearing, you should put the following questions to each expert witness in turn:

1. What do you think Antigone’s defiance reveals about the nature of law and its relationship to ethics or justice?
2. How do you think Antigone’s individual agency challenges or upholds the existing social order in Thebes?
3. What lessons do you think modern societies can learn from these events about conflict resolution and the balance between competing obligations?

After each witness has responded, the other witnesses will also briefly question them. After all three witnesses have appeared, you will then ask a final question for them all to answer:

Finally, you should reflect on whether any of the witnesses' perspectives could be a basis for the recommendations you will be making.

Hegel - Brief

You are representing G.W.F. Hegel. Your role is twofold:

1. to answer the panel's questions from a Hegelian perspective
2. to challenge the other witnesses on their answers to the panel

In advance of the hearing, you should make brief notes so you can answer the panel's questions (see above). Focus on:

• Hegel’s interpretation of Antigone as a clash of ethical systems: Antigone represents the family and divine law, while Creon represents the state and human law.
• The dialectical nature of the tragedy: how both sides have legitimacy, but their inability to reconcile leads to destruction.
• The role of individual agency within the larger framework of ethical life, and the inevitability of conflict when different ethical spheres collide.
• The way in which the dramatic form of Antigone embodies a dialectical process, in which two legitimate ethical systems clash.

During the hearing, you should respond to the panel's questions. You should also ask the following questions of the other witnesses, after they have replied to the panel:

• To Lacan: Can Antigone’s desire can be fully understood without reference to ethical systems or social obligations?
• To Butler: Does your focus on gender and performativity oversimplify the metaphysical dimensions of the conflict?

Lacan - Brief

You are representing Jacques Lacan. Your role is twofold:

1. to answer the panel's questions from a Lacanian perspective
2. to challenge the other witnesses on their answers to the panel

In advance of the hearing, you should make brief notes so you can answer the panel's questions (see above). Focus on:

• Lacan’s reading of Antigone in The Ethics of Psychoanalysis: Antigone as the embodiment of pure desire, beyond the symbolic order of law and language.
• The concept of Antigone as a figure of the in-between: she inhabits the boundary between life and death, challenging the limits of the human condition.
• The ethical implications of Antigone’s unwavering commitment to her desire, and how this reflects Lacan’s broader ideas about subjectivity and the real.
• The way in which the dramatic form of Antigone heightens the tension between Antigone’s actions and the symbolic order, emphasizing her position at the boundary between life and death.

You should also think about how you might answer questions from the other witnesses - see their respective briefs.

During the hearing, you should respond to the panel's questions. You should also ask the following questions of the other witnesses, after they have replied to the panel:

• To Hegel: Are ethical systems enough to account for Antigone’s radical singularity and defiance?
• To Butler: How can ideas of performativity and gender explain Antigone’s commitment to her brother’s burial as more than a familial duty?

Butler - Brief

You are representing Judith Butler. Your role is twofold:

1. to answer the panel's questions from a Butlerian perspective
2. to challenge the other witnesses on their answers to the panel

In advance of the hearing, you should make brief notes so you can answer the panel's questions (see above). Focus on:

• Butler’s interpretation of Antigone in Antigone’s Claim: the play as a critique of normative kinship structures and the limits of intelligibility within gender and politics.
• Antigone as a figure who disrupts both state and family norms, exposing the exclusions and violence of these structures.
• The interplay between Antigone’s identity, performativity, and resistance, particularly in relation to gendered expectations and societal constraints.
• The way in which the dramatic form of Antigone reveals how social norms are constructed and challenged, by staging Antigone’s defiance and Creon’s authority as contested performances.