Biopolitics: Antigone's claim

ENThe figure of Antigone has always been the object of conflicting interpretations and theoretical disagreements. Hegel, Lacan, Irigaray, Butler, and many others have given such different interpretations of the meaning of this character that finally we are left without any definite answer. It seems that every attempt at interpretation reveals not the hidden truth of Sophocles' character, but says something about the interpreter's position and his/her theoretical background. This situation of conflicting interpretations reminds me of the definition of trauma: the non-representability of a traumatic event is usually signalled by the impossibility of defining its content. Every new network of symbolic representation re-creates a traumatic event in a new way, but the 'real' event is always hidden and missing. Having this in mind, I shall not try to reconstruct the 'real' meaning of Antigone's event. The most useful way to interpret the event of Antigone is, I think, to ask what it means in the recent geopolitical situation.