Our Workshops

Writer as Reader Workshops

In Sophocles’ drama, Antigone claims that she is acting out of laws “unwritten and unfailing” that “live not now or yesterday / But always.”   In other words, she’s arguing not only from the basis of laws of the city-state but from laws that defy or challenge civil authority and are inscribed primarily in silence and in the body. In this workshop, we will look at the structure of Antigone’s argument—at both its spoken and unspoken realms—and consider how more contemporary texts, such as Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” or Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s challenging Dictee, might help us further our understanding of the argument form and what it means to speak “the unspeakable” that defies both custom and law.

Text: Antigone by Sophocles, translated by Reginald Gibbons and Charles Segal, Oxford University Press, 2007. ISBN: 978-0-19514310-2.  Selections from King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and Cha’s Dictee will be provided.