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BUILDING COSMOPOLITICAL SOLIDARITY FROM THE ANTIGONE: A RETURN TO THE CHORUS By Rebecca L. McCarthy A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of The Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Florida Atlantic University Boca Raton, Florida August 2007 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Copyright by Rebecca L. McCarthy 2007 ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. BUILDING COSMOPOLITICAL SOLIDARITY FROM THE ANTIGONE: A RETURN TO THE CHORUS By Rebecca L. McCarthy This Dissertation was prepared under the direction of the candidate’s dissertation advisor, Dr. Jan W. Hokenson, Department of Languages and Linguistics, and has been approved by the members of her supervisory committee. It has been submitted to the faculty of the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters and was accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE: Dr. Jah^\| Hokenson, Director of Dissertation iWilliamsDr. Da iWilliamsDr. r. Mark V. Frezzo Chairperson^Department of Comparative Studies Dean, The Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters Dean, Graduate Studies and Programs 7/Date^ * in Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I owe a debt of gratitude to many people who helped me to conceive, develop and write this project. Foremost, I thank my mentor Dr. Jan Hokenson for her expertise on the Antigone, her guidance, insight, support, direction and detailed notes, which kept me on track and focused. I am grateful to Dr. David Williams for introducing me to the writings of Kenneth Burke, and for nurturing in me a love for rhetorical theory. I also owe a great deal of gratitude to Dr. Mark Frezzo, who introduced me to cosmopolitism and social movement theory and literature, and who helped me navigate the stormy waters of neoliberal logic and workings. Several other friends and mentors from Florida Atlantic University also contributed in various ways to this project including Dr. Richard Shusterman for introducing me to pragmatism, Dr. Farshad Araghi for nurturing in me a love for the social sciences, Dr. Noemi Marin, Dr. Anthony Tamburri, Dr. Susan Love Brown, Dr. Sandra Norman, Stefanie Gapinski, Gabrielle Denier, Rebecca Kuhn, Alessandra Senzani (thank you for sending me the clowns), Jacqueline May, Margaret Schaller, Marc Rhorer, Shereen Siddiqui, Lois Wolfe, Chiara Mazzucchelli and Silvia Giagnoni. I would also like to thank the Graduate Studies Department and the late Mrs. Aurel B. Newell for the Dr. Daniel B. Newell and Aurel B. Newell Doctoral Fellowship, which allowed me to complete this dissertation and my studies. Finally, I could not have gone back to earn my Ph.D. or complete this dissertation without the support and love of my family and friends. Thank you Deborah McCarthy, Lee Grossman, Emily Hadley, Jonathan Hadley-McCarthy, Fred McCarthy, Amy Snyder and Catherine Coats-Milanoski. I especially thank my husband George Wabey for his friendship, support and editorial efforts. To my mom, k. Margaret Grossman, thank you for everything. iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT Author: Rebecca L. McCarthy Title: Building Cosmopolitical Solidarity from the Antigone: A Return to the Chorus Institution: Florida Atlantic University Dissertation Advisor: Dr. Jan Hokenson Degree: Doctor of Philosophy Year: 2007 “Building Cosmopolitical Solidarity from the Antigone.” takes an in-depth look at how the Antigone by Sophocles has been used by social movements and social/politically concerned playwrights, theorists and activists as either a tool for discursive and performative resistance, or as a way to reinforce status-quo state rule since at least the Enlightenment to present day. I argue that Sophocles’ characters Creon and Antigone are not ideal images for social movements who seek a cosmopolitical democracy. Rather it is to Sophocles’ Chorus and the Watchman that we must turn when proposing democratic cosmopolitanism. Thus, a new communication approach is proposed: a choral dialogue driven by pragmatic logic and employing an aesthetic, often comedic, improvisational experience. Further, this work strives to unite theories from social science, social movement theory, rhetoric, philosophy and theatre. Its aim is to offer practical tools for social movements who wish to gain international, cosmopolitical, stature and to encourage a progressive democratic space. Core study groups include the Project for a New American Century, Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping, ACT-UP, andthe Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army. v Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS Prologue...............................................................................................................................1 The Antigone Paradigm......................... 3 Cosmopolitical Communication and Improvisational Choral Workings.... ..................... 4 Plan for Chapters and Claims .........................................................................................8 The Antigone Parodos ..............................................................................................................................17 Framing, Sheer Motion and Action ...............................................................................19 Antigone and Creon ......................................... 27 Ideographic Arguments and Framing Construction ......................................................33 Tiresias and Haemon .................. 38 Episode O ne ................ 41 Creating Distance through a Dramatic Choral Incongruity .......................................... 43 The Comic Corrective or the Comic Perspective by Incongruity .................................52 The Collective that Learns .................................... 57 The First Stasimon ............................................................................................................64 Hegel’s Antigone ...........................................................................................................65 Kierkegaard’s Either/Or................................................................................................ 70 The Antigone as a Political Touchstone—The Theatre of Jean Anouilh ..................... 75 Antigone and the Terrorist Events of September 11, 2001 .......................................... 82 Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism Episode Two ........................................................................................ 89 The Ancient Greek and Roman Roots of Cosmopolitanism ........................................ 90 From Cosmopolitanism to Universalism ....................................................................... 96 Cosmopolitanism Distorted—Just another Empire........................ 99 Immanuel Kant’s Perpetual Peace through Cosmopolitanism ................................... 103 The Modern Call For and Against Cosmopolitanism ..................................................108 Cognitive/Ethical Cosmopolitanism .............................................................................110 Political /Praxis Cosmopolitanism ............................... 113 Rooted Cosmopolitanism .............................................. 117 The Second Stasimon ..................................................................................................... 120 The Rise of the American Neoconservative Movement .............................................128 The Project for a New American Century .............................. ....................................133 Creating a Creonic Master Frame— Patriotism and Moral Authority ..........................138 Universalizing Americana—Perverting the Antigonal Frame ..................................... 140 Episode Three .................................................................................................................. 149 Rooted Citizens of the World .......................................................................................151 Imagining the Other ............................................................. 153 Cosmopolitical Democracy ...................................................................... .................. 158 Pragmatic Idealism-Promoting Process over Ends ....................... 162 vi Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reorientation From-Below 167 Cosmopolitical Choral Configurations The Third Stasimon .........................................................................................................175 Shifting Main Frames—From Consumerism to Interpersonal Relationships ............ 176 Rediscovering Life’s Processes: Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping .178 Bureaucratizing the Commodity as a Truth and an End ............................................ 182 Doxa versus Truth with a Capital “T” .............................................................. 184 Pragmatic Aesthetics................................................................................................. 188 Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping’s Cell Phone Opera ...................