Abstract: This essay proposes a new solution to the problem of the first burial in Antigone and argues as well for taking seriously the sororal relationship, more loving than bitter, between Antigone and Ismene, evidence of which is examined in detail. Drawing on classics and political theory literature as well as Lacan and Lacanian thought, the essay argues that Romantic and liberal receptions of Antigone, committed to heroic or conscientious models of action, have occluded solidaristic forms of action evident in the play. The aim is to expand contemporary models of political agency as well as the play’s dramaturgical repertoire.

Abstract: This essay examines the social and kinship structures of the historical Quilombo dos Palmares. To this day, Palmares serves not only as a central source of inspiration for the political movement of Quilombismo, but also as a canvas for the hopes of the Black movement in Brazil. Even if some of the idealizations and many of the myths surrounding its leader Zumbi prove to be untenable, the historical Quilombo rightly represents the dream of a different society.

Abstract: This article starts from the premise that the New Testament language of early socialism is fundamental in understanding how socialist groups conceived of a renewed democratic politics of affect. In particular, it traces how a siblinghood based on the figure of Jesus enabled both the writings of the Saint-Simonist feminists in the 1830’s and later Wilhelm Weitling’s Evangelium des armen Sünders (1845) to develop a concrete micro-politics of familial relations.

Abstract: This paper focuses on a moment of temporal and spatial convergence in the South Pacific, where deportees from the defeated Paris Commune, exiled Algerians and Kanaks – local residents who had rebelled against French rule – encountered each other with their different struggles for social participation, equality and freedom. Based on Louise Michel’s memoirs from Kanaky/New Caledonia, the text reflects on the directions from which these struggles came, their connections, and the impossibilities of new communities. The text concludes by asking about the niches of possibility that, despite everything, can still be glimpsed from this moment to the present day.

Abstract: This article explores the theme of »fraternity« in Simone Weil’s Factory Diary, comparing it with the concept of fraternity found in the writings of early socialist thinkers associated with Saint-Simonism. These two approaches can be seen as complementary: while the early socialists ground sibling equality in a shared origin through maternal descent – that is, the universal condition of natality –, Weil emphasizes the necessity of a concrete, lived experience of siblinghood rooted in somatic perception. In both cases, equality is understood as something that is embodied and experienced in tangible, material terms.