Considered by many to be Nicole Loraux’s masterpiece, The Divided City (with its completion represented by the posthumous volume La tragedie d’Athènes) is probably a book with which we have not yet come to terms fully. Conflict, which, through a highly original interpretation of stasis, constitutes its thematic core, continues, in fact, to be a difficult concept to handle. On the one hand, for a widely dominant tradition of thought (for example, Habermas, Arendt), it is simply an obstacle to be removed (or concealed) in order to guarantee in the most adequate form the associated life within a political community. On the other hand, even thinkers (for example, Mouffe) who, in various ways, have tried to re-evaluate its foundational, and therefore inescapable, function in the dimension of the «political» have not done so with the radicality that shines through in the pages of the prematurely deceased French scholar. In my paper, therefore, I try to bring out, starting from the background to which I have alluded, the reasons why, by virtue of that controlled anachronism of which Loraux was a masterful interpreter and advocate, the conflict of the polis and in the polis continues to question us with searing relevance.
The Divided City: Rethinking Conflict from Nicole Loraux’s Perspective
Mauro Serra
2024
Abstract
Considered by many to be Nicole Loraux’s masterpiece, The Divided City (with its completion represented by the posthumous volume La tragedie d’Athènes) is probably a book with which we have not yet come to terms fully. Conflict, which, through a highly original interpretation of stasis, constitutes its thematic core, continues, in fact, to be a difficult concept to handle. On the one hand, for a widely dominant tradition of thought (for example, Habermas, Arendt), it is simply an obstacle to be removed (or concealed) in order to guarantee in the most adequate form the associated life within a political community. On the other hand, even thinkers (for example, Mouffe) who, in various ways, have tried to re-evaluate its foundational, and therefore inescapable, function in the dimension of the «political» have not done so with the radicality that shines through in the pages of the prematurely deceased French scholar. In my paper, therefore, I try to bring out, starting from the background to which I have alluded, the reasons why, by virtue of that controlled anachronism of which Loraux was a masterful interpreter and advocate, the conflict of the polis and in the polis continues to question us with searing relevance.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
