Sophocles’ Antigone has been central to many philosophers’, literary theorists’, and psychoanalysts’ thought. Those who have provided original interpretations and given the text significant critical attention include Friedrich Hölderlin, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Martin Heidegger, Jacques Lacan, Judith Butler, and, more recently, Alenka Zupančič.

This talk mainly focuses on Zupančič’s Let Them Rot: Antigone’s Parallax (2023), which offers a fresh interpretation of Sophocles’ Antigone, originally written in or before 441 BC. One of the main achievements of this book is its profound analysis of the so-called written and unwritten laws, which play such a key role in Antigone. Moreover, Zupančič’s original reading of the play offers a fresh understanding of the notions of death, undeadness, and funeral rites, and of their significance in Antigone. Another strength of the book is its exploration of the concepts of incest, desire, and kinship in relation to the play.