Marcela Alejandra Ristorto

The “Feminine Turn”: A New Approach to the Analysis of Emotions in Sophocles’ Antigone

I hold a PhD in Letters from the Universidad Nacional del Sur anda postdoctoal degree the Universidad de Buenos Aires. I am currently pursuing a PhD in the Study of Religions at the Complutense University of Madrid. My doctoral dissertation is entitled "Hymns and Magical Logoi to Female Deities in the Greco-Egyptian Magical Papyri: The Construction of a Supreme Female Divinity."

I am Associate Professor of European Literature I (Greco-Roman and Medieval Literature) at the Faculty of Humanities and Arts of the Universidad Nacional de Rosario (UNR). I am the Director of the Center for Hellenic Studies and Classical Tradition (CEHTRAC-UNR). I currently lead the research project "The Greeks and Ourselves: Dialogue between Greek Myth, the Classical Tradition, and New Interpretive Approaches."

I am a researcher at the Institute for Critical Studies in the Humanities (IECH-CONICET), a member of the Editorial Board of Saga. Revista de Letras (UNR), and a member of the Academic Committee of the PhD Program in Argentine Literature and Critical Studies (UNR). I also belong to the Argentine Association of Classical Studies (AADEC) and the Argentine Association of French and Francophone Literature (AALFF).

I have conducted research stays in Germany through fellowships awarded by the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) at the Seminar für Klassische Philologie, Heidelberg University (2013), and at the Institut für Klassische Philologie, Humboldt University of Berlin (2022).

This project examines the relationship between the politics of lamentation and female agency in Classical Athens. Within the context of Athenian democracy, the enactment of new funerary laws sought to regulate the excessive mourning practices of aristocratic families by limiting women's participation in funerary rituals. In the democratic polis, funerals became the prerogative of male citizens, and the epitaphios logos replaced women's laments as the officially sanctioned form of commemorating the dead.

In order to investigate the political implications of these transformations, the project proposes a comparative reading of Pericles' “Funeral Oration”, as transmitted by Thucydides (History of the Peloponnesian War II.35–46), and Sophocles' Antigone. This comparison makes it possible to explore how civic regulations concerning funerals and mourning redefined the spheres of action available to men and women, while also highlighting the tensions between the demands of the polis and familial and religious obligations.

From this perspective, Sophocles' tragedy provides an ideal framework for examining both the possibilities and the limits of female agency, as well as the tensions inherent in the exercise of male agency within the civic order. Such an approach moves beyond long-established interpretations that portray Antigone as an isolated figure exclusively devoted to fulfilling her obligations toward her family and the chthonic gods, without concern for the affairs of the polis. Instead, the project argues that Antigone is simultaneously a heroic and political figure whose actions cannot be explained solely in terms of religious and familial commitments. Rather, she acts with full awareness of the concerns of both aristocratic households and the polis itself.

The analysis of male agency will focus in particular on the figure of Creon. Contrary to interpretations that regard him either as an essentially anti-democratic ruler or, conversely, as a model democratic leader, I argue that his character embodies the Athenian elite which, by adapting to the demands of the democratic polis of the fifth century BCE, succeeded in preserving its position of power. This adaptation involved a strategic appropriation of democratic values, through which the elite legitimized its authority within the new political order. In this sense, Creon may be understood as a metonymy for democracy itself, insofar as his actions encapsulate both the strengths of the democratic regime and its inherent contradictions and excesses. From this perspective, the character provides an opportunity to explore the limits of male agency when the exercise of political power comes into conflict with other normative spheres, such as family ties, religious obligations, and funerary practices.

Book Chapters

International

"Reflecting upon Cyprus as a Sacred Place in the Homeric Hymn 6" (with Silvia Reyes), in A. Papathomas, G. Karla, K. Carvounis & A. Gavrielatos (eds.), Cyprus in Texts from Graeco-Roman Antiquity. Leiden: Brill, 2023. 

“La importancia de las epikleseis en los himnos mágicos en la construcción de una deidad femenina suprema (PGM IV 1399-1434)”, pp. 52-73, in B. Briones Soto, R. Paz Espinosa, A. Bertolo Díaz (eds), El fenómeno religioso meditado al alero de la pandemia. Editorial SChCR, Concepción, 2022. 

“Love Spell and Hymn to Aphrodite in PGM IV (2891-2941)”, in L. M. Bortolani, W. Furley, S. Nagel, J. Quack (eds.), Cultural Plurality in Ancient Magical Texts and Practices. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, 2019. 

Images aériennes dans les Bacchantes d’ Euripide, en colaboración con la Prof. Silvia Reyes, en Assäel, J. (ed), Euripide et l’ imagination aérienne, Paris, 2015.

National

Ciudadanía y continuidad del linaje autóctono: la función del himno a Atenea Nike en el Ión de Eurípides, en Migraciones, desplazamientos, conflictos en el mundo antiguo, publicado en la colección "Saberes" de la Editorial de la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de la Universidad de Buenos Aires. UBA 2023

Los himnos trágicos. Himno a Pan en Áyax de Sófocles, en Daniel Torres (ed.) La himnodia griega antigua. Culto, performance y desarrollo de las convenciones del género. UBA, 2017, pp. 111-129. 

Nóstos e identidad. Reflexiones en torno a la Odisea y en El Regreso de Bernhard Schlink: en Tramos y tramas V. Culturas, lenguas, literaturas e interdisciplina. Estudios Comparativos, comp. Cariello, G.; Ortiz, G.; F. Miranda; J. Miranda y Bussola, Laborde editor, Rosario, 2015, pp 139 a 143. 

 

Articles in Peer-Reviewed Journals

International

“Himnos a los dioses y culto heroico en Edipo en Colono de Sófocles” Journal of Hellenic Religion (ISSN 1748-7811, eISSN 1748-782X), Volume 17, 2024, pp. 33-84.

"Hymns and Curses in Aeschylus' Choephori," Journal of Hellenic Religion, 15 (2023), 1–22. 

"The Prophetic Figure of Theonoe in Euripides' Helen" (with Silvia Reyes), Journal of Hellenic Religion, 13 (2020), 15–35. 

“Construyendo la identidad nacional: Antígona Vélez”, en colaboración con la prof. Silvia Reyes, Tropelías. Revista de Teoría de la Literatura y Literatura Comparada, 33, 2020, pp. 33-44. 

“Imágenes aéreas en Bacantes de Eurípides”, en colaboración con la prof. Silvia Reyes, Loxias 45. Revue électronique de l’ Université de Nice. ISSN: 1765-3096; ISSN Papier: 1639-0237.

 

National

“El giro feminista. Clitemnestra en Agamenón de Esquilo”, Saga. Revista de Letras 18, 2024, pp. 181-188.

 Ristorto, M. A. y Reyes, S. S. (2021). “El himno a Enodia en el Ion de Eurípides”. Cuadernos de Literatura. Revista de Estudios Lingüísticos y Literarios, 16, pp. 29-47. ISSN 2684-0499. 

 “Formas hímnicas en el tercer estásimo de Helena de Eurípides”, Revista de Estudios Clásicos 48, 2020, pp. 91-119. ISSN 0325-3465 – ISSN (en línea) 2469-0643. 

“Nombres mágicos, nombres bárbaros, epítetos divinos en el Himno a Afrodita en el PGM IV (2891.2941)”, Anales de Filología Clásica 32/2, 2019, pp. 41-50. ISSN (en línea) 2362-4841 / ISSN (impresa) 0325-1721. 

“La función de los rituales mágicos y religiosos en la construcción de la teatralidad en Medea de Séneca”, Dixit. Psicoanális, Humanidades, Artes 3, 2016, pp.18-40.