University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Doctoral Dissertations Dissertations and Theses Fall November 2014 ANTIGONE CLAIMED, "I AM A STRANGER": DEMOCRACY, MEMBERSHIP AND UNAUTHORIZED IMMIGRATION ANDRES FABIAN HENAO CASTRO University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2 Part of the Ancient Philosophy Commons, Classical Literature and Philology Commons, Comparative Literature Commons, Continental Philosophy Commons, Dramatic Literature, Criticism and Theory Commons, Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons, Feminist Philosophy Commons, Law and Philosophy Commons, Law and Politics Commons, Legal Theory Commons, Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Performance Studies Commons, Political Theory Commons, Politics and Social Change Commons, Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons, Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons, Theory, Knowledge and Science Commons, and the Visual Studies Commons Recommended Citation HENAO CASTRO, ANDRES FABIAN, "ANTIGONE CLAIMED, "I AM A STRANGER": DEMOCRACY, MEMBERSHIP AND UNAUTHORIZED IMMIGRATION" (2014). 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ANTIGONE CLAIMED, “I AM A STRANGER”: DEMOCRACY, MEMBERSHIP AND UNAUTHORIZED IMMIGRATION A Dissertation Presented by ANDRÉS FABIÁN HENAO CASTRO Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY September 2014 Department of Political Science © Copyright by Andrés Fabián Henao Castro 2014 All Rights Reserved ANTIGONE CLAIMED, “I AM A STRANGER”: DEMOCRACY, MEMBERSHIP AND UNAUTHORIZED IMMIGRATION A Dissertation Presented by ANDRÉS FABIÁN HENAO CASTRO Approved as to style and content by: __________________________________________ Nicholas Xenos, Chair __________________________________________ Ivan Ascher, Member __________________________________________ James Hicks, Member __________________________________________ Adam Sitze, Member ________________________________________ Brian F. Schaffner, Department Chair Department of Political Science ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Spinoza defines gratitude as the “desire, or eagerness of love, by which we strive to benefit one who has benefited us from a like affect of love” (Spinoza 1996, p. 110). No one has benefited me more in this process than my adviser, Nicholas Xenos, who has accompanied this dissertation since before it was even conceived, when I first met him in his seminar on critical theory during my first semester as a PhD student. To acknowledge his role as a mentor means to recognize my obligation towards him, unknowing how his own participation in this project—following my often-scattered way of presenting ideas—might have also benefited him. This dissertation, which owes much to him, is the offspring of that intellectual affect of love between us. He has not only encouraged my way of thinking, his theoretical reflection on the problem of form has also greatly impacted my effort to seek in ancient tragedy a way of rethinking contemporary problems of political membership. As great as my indebtedness towards Nick is, this is also the proper place to release him from any responsibility for the shortcomings of this dissertation, which are all mine. A dissertation is, by its very nature, the proposal of a debate—a conversation that does not end but starts here and, in that paradoxical sense, retroactively produces the final product as an unfinished text. Once I heard Professor Ivan Ascher say that paradoxes are not the problem but the solution, a troubling thought that has bring some peace to a dissertation that is completely surrounded by paradoxes—to start with, the paradox of looking for a less canonical interpretation in probably the most canonical classical play, Sophocles’ Antigone. If from Nick I inherited a preoccupation with the form of the text, from Ivan I inherited a desire iv for what Roland Barthes (1975) called the pleasure of the text. Anyone who has had the privilege of meeting Ivan knows how addictive a conversation with him is. There is a danger involved in meeting Ivan, the danger of having so many thoughts in your mind after talking to him that four years would not be enough to organize them in a paper. Barthes and Lacan were absent from his wonderful seminar on French Theory, now I know why they did not make it—the pleasure of the text was already there, as was the jouissance that we all continue to feel under his presence. I had a similar experience when I attended Professor James Hicks’ seminar on truth and representation, which could have been the alternative subtitle for my dissertation. Jim has been the best reader of my work and I asked him to be a part of my committee because of that. He returned my texts with so much of his own ink that I was no longer sure if I could still claim them as my own. But Jim gave me something far more important than a rigorous and thought provoking reading of my texts—he gave me a second home. I had two homes at the University of Massachusetts Amherst: the political science department and the comparative literature program, an academic community that welcomed me as if I were one of their own. The question of truth and representation, which has haunted philosophy since its origins in Plato’s Socratic dialogues, continues to bring me back to Jim’s scholarship as one of those beginnings whose gravitational force makes you constantly orbit around them. Professor Adam Sitze was first described to me, in the corridors of the Clark House in Amherst College, as scarily smart. Soon I understood why the adverb was so appropriate. Slavoj Žižek once said—referring to Alain Badiou—that a figure like Plato walks among us. Adam, who has written the best article I have read on Badiou and Plato, v is another of those figures walking among us. To have walked so close to him is, indeed, a scary privilege. It is scary because figures like Plato are rather scarce. Referring to Plato, Anne Carson (1998, p. 145) once made the connection between the affect of the lover and the affect of the reader, claiming that as much as lovers “[want] ice to be ice and yet not melt in [their] hands,” readers also “want knowledge to be knowledge and yet lie fixed on a written page.” The thought of having Adam no longer walking around me, as this dissertation comes to completion, is terrifying. So much that I feel almost compelled to act against Plato’s dictum, to avoid fixing anything on the written page so as to extend that walking adventure forever. Much like Jim, who offered me another home, Adam too offered me a third one. Because of his active intervention, Amherst College came to my aid when my first home faced economic difficulties to continue supporting my work, and the College awarded me their prestigious Karl Loewenstein Fellowship, creating the perfect conditions for me to finish my work. When I speak positively about homelessness in reference to Antigone’s refusal to be confined in one singular space, I cannot fail to notice a subtle connection with my own personal experience, having received in my two other homes (the comparative literature program at UMass and the departments of political science and law, jurisprudence and social thought at Amherst College) the kind of hospitality that makes homelessness no longer a condition of dispossession and injury but one of empowerment and happiness. Instead of one I had three homes in Amherst, an excess of homes that is only appropriate for a work devoted to tragedy—always a text bounded to excess. As a dissertation about membership, my own membership in a variety of academic and non-academic communities has made this dissertation possible. The vi department of political science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst constitutes the first community, and the support that I received from its faculty, students and staff has been enormous. I would like to thank, first of all, my professors in political theory: Roberto Alejandro, Angelica Bernal and Barbara Cruikshank, all of who commented on different sections of this dissertation and influenced, with their own work, its final outcome. I owe much to Professor Roberto Alejandro, whose expertise on ancient political theory and enviable close-textual reading skills I wanted so much to imitate. Roberto Alejandro always showed me what was missing in my reading, what was furthered silenced within my own efforts to hear the voices still speaking in those silences, which is probably the greatest gift you can receive from a reader. Great, too, is my debt towards Professor Angelica Bernal, whose support and encouragement knows no limits, and with whom I share many theoretical interests and intellectual passions. The very first draft of this dissertation came from my comprehensive examination on contemporary social and political thought, which I undertook under her and my adviser’s direction. Both of them first gave form to what ended up becoming a fascinating four- year exploration of texts. Professor Barbara Cruikshank has been a wonderful friend and companion, constantly reassuring me on the value of my thoughts and on the need to share them with others as she so generously shared hers. Many other professors in political science and in other departments at UMass also added to my work with their friendship, their diligent readings, their theoretical suggestions and countless contributions to my thought. I would like to especially thank professors Sonia Alvarez, John Brigham, Agustin Lao-Montes, Jane Anderson and Leah Wing. This dissertation would also not have been possible without the input from my colleagues at UMass and vii the support I received from the staff at the political science department.