Suchergebnisse

The paper deals with women?s education in Ancient Greece. In ancient times, women were dominated by men throughout the Greek world, while their roles and competence were strictly defined (albeit differently across various city-states). Although not all women were deprived of education, their education was almost never organized by the city-state. Women?s knowledge and voice were never welcome in the public domain. However, the picture of women?s education, knowledge and competences is not one-dimensional and it would be wrong to claim that those did not exist. Foreign women sometimes had more freedom of education and free communication with men than Greek citizens? wives (especially in Athens); education was also available for girls from rich families; some city-states other than Athens were less restrictive towards their women. The other aspect of the issue was the fact that there was some knowledge available to women, and in some professions, women did not appear as an exception, but rather as a rule. Such was the case of midwives, women physicians and herbal specialists/pharmacists. Their prominent role in the private domain did not only involve care of home and closest kin, but also rituals, and this should be considered an important aspect of women?s competence. However, researching women?s education and knowledge in antiquity is a difficult task, because veils of silence were cast over women?s voices in ancient times, including those that attempted to break through the barriers of their age.

This paper presents a rereading of the interpretations of Antigone by Hegel
and Kierkegaard on the grounds of research of Sophocles? text and its
performance in Athenian theatre in the context of socio-political climate of
the fifth century Athens. Focus is placed on the political aspect of theatre,
as well as on the figure of Antigone, her voice and her action, which is the
subject recognized by Hegel. However, what this interpretation lacks is the
notion that Antigone is political and not pre-political figure. This
political aspect reveals itself within the research of ancient Greek
lamentation and funeral ritual as an exclusively female practice in ancient
Greek tradition, which was subjected to regulations and control in particular
by the law of Solo (6th ct. BC). However, new political organization was not
based on family relation and aristocratic clans, as before, but exclusively
on political bodies. So, for example the vendetta, which was formulated by
women during the lamentation, was banned by law. Still, in spite of many laws
and regulations by the state, and later on (in the Byzantine period) the
church, women in Greece succeeded in keeping their important position in all
the practices around the dead, almost until the end of the XX century. So, we
see the example of traditional practice that functions on the margins of the
society endangering and controlling its official political structure in
pre-modern societies. What are the echoes of the political figure of
Antigone, as a woman in charge of the family funeral duties, in the text of
Hegel and in the text of Kierkegaard. Where is her voice? And does she act
politically or privately?