Valeria Spacciante | Columbia University (original) (raw)

Papers by Valeria Spacciante

Classical Receptions Journal, 2024

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This article analyzes Madeline Miller’s Circe in relation to the contemporary trend of women’s mythological retellings of marginalized female characters. Because of Circe’s first-person narrative, Miller’s book has been interpreted and marketed as empowering and feminist; however, Circe’s narrative structure rather reaffirms the ideological assumptions underlying the ‘masculine’ Bildungsroman, where the female character’s individual experience is defined by romance and she is ultimately excluded from the social scene. The dichotomy between the marketing rhetoric of empowerment and the novel’s actual narrative structure stimulates a broader reflection about the ideological implication of this novelistic trend as a whole. On the one hand, these novels exploit the well-established exemplary value of Graeco-Roman antiquity to offer a new version of the classical canon which accommodates the critiques of radical movements like feminism; on the other hand, they appropriate the progressive aura of such movements to secure a broader audience while in fact leaving power imbalances unquestioned.

Whatever. A Transdisciplinary Journal of Queer Theories and Studies, 2021

This article analyzes the development of the protagonist's conception of desire in one of the mos... more This article analyzes the development of the protagonist's conception of desire in one of the most relevant works in the Italian queer canon-Walter Siti's Scuola di nudo-in order to show how the Platonic erotic conception eventually yields to modern theories on social behavior in the context of power relations between individuals as formulated by Hegel, Kojève, and Girard. Such a conclusion marks the paradoxical failure of the main character Walter, since it proves his intellectual defeat against the prevarication logic governing the contemporary world. From the close reading of the novel, it appears that the analysis of desire becomes the stage of Walter's personal struggle, who at the end of the novel rejects intellectualized love and accepts abusive relationships as the only successful kind of relationship. An effective image to describe Walter's inner development throughout the novel is the "katabasis", since he moves from an extremely intellectualized to a utilitarian conception of love. Such a shift of perspective ensures Walter's integration into society, but on the other hand confirms his intellectual ineptitude and inability to oppose an ideological system which he despises.

This article aims to highlight the symbolist items of the Histoire de Tityre, the last section of... more This article aims to highlight the symbolist items of the Histoire de Tityre, the last section of André Gideʼs Le Prométhée mal enchaîné. This section is at the same time the most successful symbolic representation of a moral condition and the starting point of the release from any kind of external determination. Through the mise en abyme of his mythical alter ego, Prométhée tells about his own délivrance from his religious scruples, providing the most eloquent example of symbolic representation by a mythical character. In the Épilogue, however, the situation is reversed: Prométhée warns the reader against mythical mystification, leading him to the conclusion that it is impossible to trust mythical examples.

Conference Presentations by Valeria Spacciante

Due to its peculiar form – a description of the temple of the Syrian Goddess in Hierapolis presen... more Due to its peculiar form – a description of the temple of the Syrian Goddess in Hierapolis presented by an Assyrian imitating Herodotus – Lucian’s On the Syrian Goddess (DDS) has been used in recent scholarship as an example of how non-Graeco-Roman identities can be successfully negotiated in the imperial era (Elsner 2001; Lightfoot 2003; Andrade 2013). However, I argue for a less conciliatory reading of DDS – the text seems in fact to show how difficult this negotiation is for identities who – because of class, gender, and ethnicity – rank lower in the social pyramid and therefore are not easily talked about.
I focus on the story of Combabus (DDS 17-27), a handsome youth at the service of the Assyrian king. When asked by his king to accompany the queen to Hierapolis and monitor the construction of the temple, Combabus decides to castrate himself so as to avoid the fatal penalty for suspected marital infidelity. Even though it is the longest account in DDS, the Combabus episode has not received much scholarly attention. After the comparative studies on the tradition around Combabus by Benveniste and Krappe (Benveniste 1939; Krappe 1946), and Anderson’s study of the character in DDS (Anderson 1976), only Elsner and Finglass have recently written about Combabus (Elsner 2001, Finglass 2005). Elsner understood Combabus’s story as a commentary for DDS’s themes of power and identity, while Finglass explored the Odyssey as a possible hypotext for this section. Putting in dialogue Finglass’s rigorous philological approach with Elsner’s work on identity, I suggest that this episode is a mise en abyme of how tradition pressures lower-class individuals to modify their identities to survive within power structures. Combabus’s story bears many similarities with Euripides’ Hippolytus, therefore the youth is forced to castrate himself and become ἀτελής in order to avoid any sexual interest by Stratonice. I argue that the author uses Combabus’s story to show how dangerous the traditional discourse is for non-elite individuals, to the point that he needs to edit his own body to edit the tradition around it. To do so, I rely on Haraway’s concept of “situated knowledge” (Haraway 1988) and Rancière’s studies on the appropriation of public space by the elite (Rancière 2004), as well as on Butler’s analysis of the paradoxical nature of power (Butler 1997).
Combabus’ precastration monologue gives excellent insight into his attitude towards tradition (DDS 20). In this passage the character uses some buzzwords for tragedy (τέλος, συμφορή), which he indicates as the reason for his castration. At the end of his speech, he becomes ἀτελής (“with no τέλος”,but also “incomplete”). This indicates that Combabus’s masculinity s indissolubly tied to his tragic role of object of desire, therefore by rejecting tragedy he will be free from any accusations by the king.
In conclusion, by foregrounding Combabus’s castration the author not only shows how destructive tragic tradition is for non-elite individuals, but he also tries to create a space of representation for otherwise overlooked identities.

Ever since Madeline Miller’s Circe appeared (2018), rewriting ancient Greek myths from a female p... more Ever since Madeline Miller’s Circe appeared (2018), rewriting ancient Greek myths from a female perspective has become a common trend in contemporary fiction. In the last four years, many books written by female authors have appeared on the English-speaking literary scene and have been acquiring an ever-increasing popularity. Part of such a success lies in intense advertising campaigns, which interpret the internal focalization adopted by these books as a means for female empowerment.
However, in books like Circe and Jennifer Saints’ Ariadne (2021) the heroine’s speaking in her own voice does not correspond to her actual emancipation in the fictional world. Such paradox is well represented by the fact that both characters end up on deserted islands after rebelling against their fathers. On the one hand, the nesiotic context amplifies the heroines’ point of view, who are described as the rebellious outcasts; on the other hand, to this rebellious act no other challenge to the social status quo ever follows. On the contrary, the two heroines become more and more comfortable with their isolation and progressively refuse any engagement with society. By analyzing how Aeaea and Naxos respectively affect Circe’s and Ariadne’s agency in the novel, I will understand the heroines’ confinement on their islands as a metaphor for socio-political isolation. While doing so, I will build on feminist narratologist Lanser’s claim that a feminist narratology needs to “reflect the mimetic as well as the semiotic experience” of literature, and show how the first-person narrative does not equal female emancipation in these two novels.
By disentangling the content of these books from their literary form, not only will I push back against the promotion of these books as “progressive” by their marketing campaigns, but I will also question the use of concepts like “female empowerment” in contemporary mainstream culture.

Body is a central issue in Combabus’ story in Lucian’s The Syrian Goddess. Ordered by his king to... more Body is a central issue in Combabus’ story in Lucian’s The Syrian Goddess. Ordered by his king to accompany the queen to Hierapolis, Combabus preemptively castrates himself in order not to be accused of adultery. Starting from Aristotle’s equation between bodies and tragic plots in chapter 7 of the Poetics, I will use Combabus’ body as an hermeneutic tool and examine how his attempts to edit his own body reflect his attempt to edit the tragical tradition – I will show how Combabus’ castration is meant to question the Greek tragic tradition and its tropes, since Combabus castrates himself in order to avoid a tragic plot modelled after Euripides’ Hippolytus. I will interpret Combabus’ castration as an act of rebellion against tragic expectations.
To focus on the transformations which Combabus’ body undergoes throughout the story allows to better illuminate the complex relationship of the text with the Greek tradition: to do away with tradition implies a great cost for Combabus, who eventually needs to give up on his own masculinity. His body, then, is haunted and even violated by the classical tradition. At the end of my talk, I will claim that Combabus embodies the difficulties of dealing with Greece’s literary heritage, which forces the subject to reshape their own identity.

In my talk I aim to adopt James Phelan’s new narratology tools in order to reject the mainstream ... more In my talk I aim to adopt James Phelan’s new narratology tools in order to reject the mainstream understing of Madeline Miller’s Circe (2018), which was defined by both the critics and the public as “feminist”. By conducting a narratological reading of the novel we can find the reason of such success in the first person narration and in the internal focalization on Circe. Taking the cue from Rancière, we can detect in such a stylistic decision an example of consensus, namely a non-conflict between sense and sense. To give voice to a traditional marginal character is indeed generally interpreted as a revolutionary act and a significant socio-political statement in favor of such marginalized figures. Not surprisingly, then, the book has been considered as a feminist counter-writing of Homer’s Odyssey. The general consensus (here in the sense of agreement of opinions) around the book proves Rancière’s theory: the first-person narration, in the mind of both the author and the public, is enough to put Circe on the spotlight and to voice her distress in the society. Under this perspective, the book proves to be anything but “political” (in Rancière’s terms), since it perfectly meets the readers’ expectations. By following Phelan, I will show how the book’s very structure only superficially disagrees with the social status quo, whereas it actually endorses it. In fact, the internal focalization misleads the reader, since it makes up for an oppressive situation which the character actually never overcomes. Furthermore, I will illustrate how the whole narration is meant to make the audience empathize with Circe, to the extent that at the end of the story the reader is persuaded to understand her as a trasgressive woman whereas, at a deeper analysis, she never totally emancipates herself from the gender social expectations.

I will point out the inner tensions of the French literature of the inter-war period and its ambi... more I will point out the inner tensions of the French literature of the inter-war period and its ambivalent relationship with the classics, addressing some of André Gide's, Jean Cocteau's and Jean Giraudoux's "classical" plays. On the one hand, these authors challenge and mock the classical tradition because of its being the basis of the dominant, bellicistic culture. On the other one, they try to use these same classics to promote an alternative ideology, pacifist and inclusive.
Such troubled relationship with the classics also implies some philosopical considerations: despite the most widely held critical positions, tending to read French modernism as a humanistic movement, the plays of the '20s and '30s display nihilistic patterns which are repressed by their authors. Yet, they still come to the light through the irony which pervades these texts. My paper therefore offers a psychoanalitical reading of these works in order to highlight their nihilist elements and their struggle against the pervasive humanistic discourse. In this view, humanism is thus a compromise formation between nihilism and the need for social order in the aftermath of the war and the classics are the battleground of these conflicting ideologies, being the norm both to follow and to escape.

My paper aims to investigate how the Australian writer David Malouf’s Ransom (2009) deals with th... more My paper aims to investigate how the Australian writer David Malouf’s Ransom (2009) deals with the roles imposed by epic and – consequently – by the Western tradition. The novel – an adaptation from Iliad 24 – can be fruitfully analysed by using the American sociologist and sociolinguistic Harvey Sack’s Membership Categorization Analysis. Sacks shows how social groups organise themselves around categories, which are based on Aristotelian syllogisms. In Malouf’s novel, both Priam and Achilles try to escape from the roles they are expected to play as epic characters – the best warrior and the king respectively – and therefore they question the social expectations upon them. In particular, they struggle to be humans rather than characters. This aim is accomplished by performing the actions expected by humans, namely feel emotions. In fact, both characters are not expected to be sensitive, since they are perceived by the others in the novel as mere actants that have to keep the story going.
In Sack’s view, Priam and Achilles belong to specific categories, therefore the other characters – which compose the social universe of the novel – expect them to perform the most suitable actions to their status. In particular, Priam has to be passive and let the others serve him, whereas Achilles has to be a cruel killer. However, none of them – albeit for different reasons – is required to feel compassion. On the other hand, compassion belongs to the human category, which both characters still belong to. The novel thus shows the crisis that results from the category clash the two characters undergo and the consequent process they have to go through to affirm themselves as people. In this frame, Priam’s journey toward the Greek camp is a metaphor of the self-affirmation process that the king experiences; Achilles and Priam claim their right to be humans and reject the system of categories as such. In the wake of Homer, Malouf eliminates any social mediation and tries to get back to the equality of human condition.
Such a reading has powerful implications from the postcolonial point of view, since it overtly questions both Homer and the Aristotelian logic, namely the core of the Western culture and the fixed social roles it conveys. Australian born, British educated, Malouf devotes all his literary career to balance the different parts of his cultural identity, in search of a satisfactory synthesis. Therefore, his rejection of categories may also be applied to the Australian cultural context: in Malouf’s view, it is crucial to get over the superimposed concepts of “winner” and “loser” - or, rather, “coloniser” and “colonised” - and reflect upon being humans. Ransom thus shows how inconsistent and limitng the Western way of thinking is and consequently tries to broaden the view, in the hope of a peaceful communion.

My presentation discusses the 2012 Roberta Torre’s staging of Aristophanes’ Birds for the Greek T... more My presentation discusses the 2012 Roberta Torre’s staging of Aristophanes’ Birds for the Greek Theatre in Siracusa as an example of successful and functional misdirection.
First of all, Torre’s staging is considerably shorter than the original play: the severe cuts make it easier to the audience, even though at some points the text’s overall coherence is compromised. The result is a light and funny comedy, which perfectly meets the audience’s expectations.
Moreover, the director chooses to generalise the farcical mood, because of her penchant for grotesque and coarseness – as it is detectable from her previous works -, expanding and exaggerating Aristophanes’ comic devices, such as glitzy costumes, jumble and slapstick.
Torre’s approach to the comedy’s political implications is equally striking: on the one hand, she embraces the philological – although lesser-known reading of Pisthetaerus as a tyrant, on the other one she shifts this interpretation to an 18th-century setting, thus making it easier to understand for the contemporary audience.
In conclusion, Roberta Torre’s staging is worth to be analysed because misdirection is paradoxically functional to highlight the play’s original meaning, which expresses itself through slapstick and political commitment.

I am going to analyse the relationship between Priam and his body in David Malouf’s Ransom (2009)... more I am going to analyse the relationship between Priam and his body in David Malouf’s Ransom (2009) to show the symbolical implications behind Priam’s journey. The king’s aim is, in fact, to break free from the constraints of his kingly position to live simply as a man. The body is in many ways significant to this issue: it is the symbol of the human existence and it can be read as an allegory of concreteness, in opposition to the abstraction of the symbolic status of kingship and, consequently, to the epic gravity. Priam’s release from kingship is reflected by the progressive reclamation of his body, which goes from a symbol to an individual entity. In this view, Ransom tells Priam’s struggle to get free from the social expectations of his category, with the consequent affirmation of his right to be a human. Body is thus a metonymy for authentic and individual life. In addition to that, it is also the symbol of the colloquial style, which frees Priam from the gravity of epic.
Yet, Malouf’s relationship with body is more complicated than that: in the end, when Priam has his body back, he tries to get rid of it to merge with the environment. In Malouf’s view, body itself is a category: for this reason, it is limiting and needs to be overcome.
In conclusion, Ransom uses the body to criticise the epic constraints, but it is well aware that body is a form of constraint too.

I analyse Jean Giraudoux’s Elpénor (1935) as a case study of the troubled relationship between a ... more I analyse Jean Giraudoux’s Elpénor (1935) as a case study of the troubled relationship between a highly educated author and the classics. His work is composed of four tales, each parodying a section of the Odyssey. Both for its style and contents, it is a very good example of an author’s attempts to go against epic normativity.
Originally, Elpénor comes out as a canular, namely as an entertainment against the boring rhetorical exercises Giraudoux was required to do during his years as a École Normale Superieure student. Yet, it engages a more complicated relationship with the classics: the book’s general trend is in fact to reverse the traditional image of the epic character, perceived by the author as being responsible for World War I. The author believes the epic’s fault lies in sensationalising war and making it noble. For this reason, Elpénor tries to establish a new image of the hero. Giraudoux chooses Elpénor, an irrelevant companion of Ulysses and barely named in the Homeric poem, and puts him at the centre of the work as the main character in the place of Ulysses. Elpénor experiences Ulysses’ adventures and relates the Trojan war from his point of view. In this way, Giraudoux gives a voice to all the secondary characters, generally cut off from epic.
The author’s tendency to deconstruction of epic is reflected in Elpénor’s style, which is ironic and tends to build a critical dialogue with the Homeric hypotext: the text often polemically alludes to the Odyssey to ridicule it. Moreover, it is totally independent of any compositional rule, mixing different styles, tones and stories.
Finally, I think that Elpénor can be fruitfully studied as an example of a challenge to Winckelmann’s classicism, that becomes even more interesting if one considers Giraudoux’s classical background.

I investigate how the Italian writer Alberto Savinio (1891-1952) handles Ulysses’ myth in his 193... more I investigate how the Italian writer Alberto Savinio (1891-1952) handles Ulysses’ myth in his 1934 play Capitano Ulisse. The writer works to release the mythical character from his traditional constraints and, finally, to create a brand new Ulysses. To achieve his aim, he destroys or reverses many of the Odyssey’s mythical tropes, so that in the end Ulysses himself can show his 1930s Italian audience the fallacy of mythical and current conventions by refusing to carry on. I will argue that in doing this, Savinio is following the lead of Greek satirist Lucian of Samosata (especially of his True Story), whose works he had annotated and illustrated, and which left remarkable - but hitherto mostly undetected - traces in Capitano Ulisse. Savinio renovates a myth in perfect Lucianean fashion, presenting parody as the only way to bring classical literature back to life.

Classical Receptions Journal, 2024

Whatever. A Transdisciplinary Journal of Queer Theories and Studies, 2021