Unravelling Oedipus: Wanderings of the Myth in Literature and Theory

Addressing themes of agency and freedom, self-knowledge and identity, reason and truth, consciousness and the unseen, the myth of Oedipus is among the most reworked and reimagined in world literature. This disturbing story has served as a cornerstone in the construction of influential theories of desire and the unconscious, of tragedy both as a literary form and a structure of experience, and of social order, culture, and civilization. In this course we will try to understand what has made Oedipus such a compelling figure for writers and thinkers across history, and consider how the myth might yet speak to us today.

We will begin by thinking about how the strange tale may have emerged. This will involve reading early versions of it from ancient Greece, as well as comparable folktales from beyond Greece. Amongst the early Greek texts, we will read both of Sophocles’ Oedipus plays in depth: Oedipus Tyrannos and the less well-known Oedipus at Colonus. Alongside these, we will read an array of theoretical texts, including works by Aristotle, Nietzsche, Lévi-Strauss, Réné Girard, and, of course, Freud. These will help us to understand the depths of the myth, but also to think more broadly about the issues it raises beyond the confines of the myth.

In the second half of the course, we will turn to adaptations of the Oedipus story from the twentieth century, accompanied by further theoretical readings. The artistic works to be discussed will include Tawfiq al-Hakim’s Oedipus the King (1949), and Ali Salem’s Comedy of Oedipus (1970), and films by Pier Paolo Pasolini and Toshio Matsumoto. There will be two optional additional sessions devoted to Philip Roth’s novel The Human Stain (2000), a complex reworking of the Oedipus myth set in late-twentieth-century America.

As a final project, participants will have the option of producing a creative project or writing an essay in response to the course materials.

Most the readings for this course will be available in Arabic. Participation in the discussions may be in Arabic or English according to individual preference.