The Feminine Turn

We warmly invite you to our international research seminar “The Feminine Turn: A two-days research seminar on Sophocles’ Antigone”  on the 29th and 30th of June. 

Please feel free to spread the word among colleagues and friends. 

The event will take place in Berlin with the online participation of the public. For the online streaming, please register via thefeminineturn@gmail.com. 

For the programme, please click this link:  https://www.normativitaet-kritik-wandel.de/_inhaltselemente/PDFs/The-Feminine-Turn.pdf

The Feminine Turn is an international research group. It initiates a cooperation between Berlin (Giulia Maria Chesi:Humboldt Universität/ Classics; Susanne Gödde & Marta Lietti: Freie Universität/ Religious Studies), Utrecht (Giacomo Scavello: Universiteit Utrecht, Philosophy and Religious Studies), California (Giulia Sissa & Diana Librandi: University of California, Los Angeles/ Political Science; California State University, Long Beach/ Classics) and Argentina (Marcela Ristorto, Clara Racca & Silvia Reyes: 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 tochallenge 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.