Reading Greek Tragedy with Judith Butler

Mario Telò

ISBN 10: 135032342X / ISBN 13: 9781350323421

Published by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, GB, 2026

About this Item

Considering Butler's "tragic trilogy"-a set of interventions on Sophocles' Antigone, Euripides' Bacchae, and Aeschylus's Eumenides-this book seeks to understand not just how Butler uses and interprets Greek tragedy, but also how tragedy shapes Butler's thinking, even when their gaze is directed elsewhere. Through close readings of these tragedies, this book brings to light the tragic quality of Butler's writing. It shows how Butler's mode of reading tragedy-and, crucially, reading tragically-offers a distinctive ethico-political response to the harrowing dilemmas of our current moment.Deeply committed both to critical theory and political activism, Judith Butler is one of the most influential intellectuals today. Their ideas have touched the lives of many people, both readers and those who have never heard Butler's name. In encompassing gender performativity and sexual difference, vulnerability and precarity, disidentification and bodily interdependency, as well as the politics of protest, Butler's work is often predicated on a strong engagement with or proximity to Greek tragedy.

Seller Inventory # LU-9781350323421

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Reading Greek Tragedy with Judith Butler
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, GB
• Publication Date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 135032342X
• ISBN 13: 9781350323421
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: New
• Dimensions: 15.6W x 1.42H x 23.39D centimeters 15.6 centimeters width by 1.42 centimeters height by 23.39 centimeters depth
• Weight: 400 grams

About this title

Synopsis

Considering Butler’s “tragic trilogy”—a set of interventions on Sophocles’ Antigone, Euripides’ Bacchae, and Aeschylus’s Eumenides—this book seeks to understand not just how Butler uses and interprets Greek tragedy, but also how tragedy shapes Butler’s thinking, even when their gaze is directed elsewhere. Through close readings of these tragedies, this book brings to light the tragic quality of Butler’s writing. It shows how Butler’s mode of reading tragedy—and, crucially, reading tragically—offers a distinctive ethico-political response to the harrowing dilemmas of our current moment. Deeply committed both to critical theory and political activism, Judith Butler is one of the most influential intellectuals today. Their ideas have touched the lives of many people, both readers and those who have never heard Butler’s name. In encompassing gender performativity and sexual difference, vulnerability and precarity, disidentification and bodily interdependency, as well as the politics of protest, Butler’s work is often predicated on a strong engagement with or proximity to Greek tragedy.

About the Authors

Mario Telò is Professor of Rhetoric, Comparative Literature, and Ancient Greek and Roman Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, USA. He is author of numerous books, including Greek Tragedy in a Global Crisis (Bloomsbury, 2023) and Roman Comedy against the Subject (2025). He is also co-editor of Radical Formalisms (Bloomsbury, 2024) and Queer Euripides (Bloomsbury, 2022).

Laura Jansen is Associate Professor in Classics & Comparative Literature at the University of Bristol, UK. She is author of Borges' Classics: Global Encounters with the Graeco-Roman World (2018), editor of The Roman Paratext: Frame, Texts, Readers (2014), and general editor of the monograph series Classical Receptions in Twentieth-Century Writing (Bloomsbury). Her next books are on Italo Calvino: Classics between Science and Literature and Susan Sontag: From Plato's Cave to Sarajevo.