The Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften: Events
Thursday, 06 November 2025, 11:00
Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften, Am Wingertsberg 4, 61348 Bad Homburg
Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften of Goethe UniversityFKH colloquium
Guido Pfeifer (Goethe University)
»The Deficits of Law – Reflections on Euripides’ Medea«Abstract
Numerous rewritings as early as antiquity as well as productions and literary adaptations up to the present prove that Medeia is one of Euripides' most powerful tragedies. Accordingly, the scholarly discourse on philological, philosophical, psychological, political and even feminist aspects of this work can hardly be overlooked. In Medeia, law plays a prominent role, albeit in its negation: Right at the beginning we learn that Medea has been wronged by her husband Jason (Eur. Med. 26); Medea substantiates this in the accusation that Jason broke his oath and the law by entering into a new marriage (Eur. Med. 488-495), while Jason, for his part, counters that it was only through him that she gained access to a legal order and thus to Greek civilization (Eur. Med. 534-538); in the perspective of the choir, on the other hand, the entire (legal) order is turned upside down (Eur. Med. 410-414).
Although this obvious legal reference of the tragedy has already stimulated some legal-historical discussions of the text, they usually address either institution-related detailed questions or legal-philosophical references. The attempt undertaken here asks in a more general sense about the legal-historical cognitive value of ancient tragedy poetry, which also includes deficits in law and the legal system, and focuses thus on a modified cognitive interest in legal history.
The speaker
Guido Pfeifer is Professor of Ancient Legal History, History of European Private Law and Civil Law, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. 2022–2026 he is a Goethe Fellow at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften at Goethe University Frankfurt.
Participation
Closed event. Contact: Beate Sutterlüty; email: b.sutterluety@forschungskolleg-humanwissenschaften.de
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