Zeus

Summary

Dominique Pagani sees Zeus above all as the god of the city: born out of chaos, he brings order and clarity to it and guards the laws of the cities. He makes him the god of "politicity", whose law Creon invokes against Antigone12. He points out that Zeus takes power through a coup d'état against Cronos3 and strikes down the rebel giants with lightning, the way one would break a general strike4. He often links him to Wotan, the "German Zeus": both are masters of lightning, and both are possessive toward a daughter, Athena on one side, Brünnhilde on the other5. He describes him as an anthropomorphic god, a man who does not die: he deceives his wife, seduces Leda, Danaë and Semele, and abducts Ganymede6. Joined with Mnemosyne, he is the father of the Muses. In the Prometheus myth, he fears that man will become the equal of the gods. Finally, he sees in the "it" of "it rains" the memory of a time when Zeus made the rain fall7.

1. 1#11 Return to the logics of the subject21 Jun 2020 · 18:23
2. 2#10.5 The figure of Antigone, such as into herself at last…24 Nov 2021 · 25:07
3. 3#4 Benefits and harms of amnesia…13 Nov 2020 · 1:13:40
4. 4Marx on the Beach 1/21 Feb 2016 · 43:44
5. 5#9.19 Twilight of the Gods, or from repetition to liberation (part 2)14 Apr 2021 · 13:29
6. 6The aporias of anthropology23 Nov 2022 · 39:41
7. 7#14 Caves of yesterday and today: from Plato to modernity10 Jun 2022 · 37:39

Summary produced automatically from 36 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.