- 1190 Dundas Street East
Apt. #424
Toronto, ON, Canada
M4M 0C5
Christina Tarnopolsky
Yale-NUS College, Social Science, Department Member
- Christina Tarnopolsky is a retired Associate Professor of Social Sciences at Yale-NUS College.Research Interests: Anc... moreChristina Tarnopolsky is a retired Associate Professor of Social Sciences at Yale-NUS College.Research Interests: Ancient Greek Political Theory, Contemporary Democratic Theory, Plato, Emotions, Aesthetics. She is currently working on two book manuscripts. The first, provisionally entitled, Plato’s Education of the Soul: The Logic of Thumos and Mimēsis in the Republic. It looks at the interconnections between Plato’s teaching on thumos and his teaching on mimēsis in the Republic. The second, provisionally entitled, Rashomon Republic, reads Plato’s Republic alternately through the lens of satyr-play, history, tragedy, medicine, and comedy. Her most recent article on Plato was published in Theory and Event and was entitled, “The Event of Genre: Reading Plato’s Republic through the lens of Satyr-play.”edit
In certain contemporary theories of the politics of shame, shame is considered a pernicious emotion that we need to avoid in, or a salutary emotion that serves as an infallible guide to, democratic deliberation. The author argues that... more
In certain contemporary theories of the politics of shame, shame is considered a pernicious emotion that we need to avoid in, or a salutary emotion that serves as an infallible guide to, democratic deliberation. The author argues that both positions arise out of an inadequate notion of the structure of shame and an oversimplistic opposition between shame and shamelessness. Plato’s dialogue, the Gorgias, actually helps to address these problems because it supplies a deeper understanding of the place of shame in democratic politics in ways that address our contemporary dilemmas. It does this first, by avoiding the simple opposition between shame and shamelessness and secondly, by articulating three different kinds of “politics of shame” that can characterize democratic deliberations. Finally, Plato’s treatment of shame extends upon contemporary ethical and psychoanalytic notions of shame in ways that are directly relevant to the our contemporary political situation.
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... The particular limitation of Socratic respectful shame, which this element of Platonic respectful shame is meant to address, relates to Socrates' unabashedness before others and is not the same thing as shamelessness. For... more
... The particular limitation of Socratic respectful shame, which this element of Platonic respectful shame is meant to address, relates to Socrates' unabashedness before others and is not the same thing as shamelessness. For this distinction, see Christina Tarnopolsky, "Plato on ...
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Page 1. Page 2. Prudes, Perverts, and Tyrants Page 3. Page 4. Prudes, Perverts, and Tyrants PLATO'S GORGIAS AND THE POLITICS OF SHAME Christina H. Tarnopolsky PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON AND OXFORD Page 5. ...
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Research Interests: Persuasion and Routledge
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change circumstances and that the educator must himself be educated. Hence this doctrine is bound to divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to society. The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human... more
change circumstances and that the educator must himself be educated. Hence this doctrine is bound to divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to society. The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-change can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice.” By the time Marx wrote those words in 1845 there was a robust discourse on the politics of individual and collective self-formation, whether in the heroic montagnard celebration of the people’s self-emergence at the barricades, or the writings of radical egalitarian educational reformers like Joseph Jacotot, who Jacques Rancière examines in The Ignorant Schoolmaster (an unmentioned book that explores in very provocative ways with the issues Villa engages with here). Indeed, Marx himself had explicitly engaged with Rousseau’s discussion of the lawgiver’s capacity to “so to speak, change human nature itself” at the conclusion of “On the Jewish Question” (1843)...
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This paper utilizes a number of different works by Freud in order to understanding the psychic forces of melancholia and mania that were prevalent in Trump and his supporters during his presidential campaign of 2015- 2016. The paper does... more
This paper utilizes a number of different works by Freud in order to understanding the psychic forces of melancholia and mania that were prevalent in Trump and his supporters during his presidential campaign of 2015- 2016. The paper does so by revisiting an early treatment of melancholia in American politics published by Mary Caputo in Theory and Event in 2000.
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In her recent essay “Prudes, Perverts, and Tyrants: Plato and the Contemporary Politics of Shame,” Christina Tarnopolsky argues for a forceful, if chastened, rehabilitation of the political and moral value of shame. Shame challenges the... more
In her recent essay “Prudes, Perverts, and Tyrants: Plato and the Contemporary Politics of Shame,” Christina Tarnopolsky argues for a forceful, if chastened, rehabilitation of the political and moral value of shame. Shame challenges the identification with the “other” by whom we measure ourselves. Specifically, shame can elicit “a moment of recognition” in which we are forced to acknowledge either that we fail to live up to the ideal of the “other” or that this ideal is flawed (it does not measure up to us). When carried out respectfully, this experience of a lacuna between self and “other” can be beneficial: “Putting someone to shame is the very activity that first creates a potentially salutary discomfort and perplexity in the patient (i.e., the intra-psychic division between self and ‘other’) that is necessary for selfconsciousness, self-reflection, self-criticism, and moral and political deliberation.” Moreover, not only is shame potentially productive of these moral qualities r...
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... As Danielle Allen (2000, 245) puts it: "In the Athenian context, to look at the spectacular body of an executed wrongdoer and be quiet about it was to accept an approach to politics and punishment in which the parameters of... more
... As Danielle Allen (2000, 245) puts it: "In the Athenian context, to look at the spectacular body of an executed wrongdoer and be quiet about it was to accept an approach to politics and punishment in which the parameters of normative citizen behavior were established by the ...
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Abstract This essay utilizes Plato's insights into the role of shame in dialogical interactions to illuminate the aesthetic dimensions of deliberative democracy. Through a close analysis of the refutation of Polus in... more
Abstract This essay utilizes Plato's insights into the role of shame in dialogical interactions to illuminate the aesthetic dimensions of deliberative democracy. Through a close analysis of the refutation of Polus in Plato's dialogue, the Gorgias, I show how the emotion of shame ...
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In this paper I argue that by reading Plato's Republic through the ancient Greek genre of the satyr-play, new insights into his project emerge. I start by showing that the dialogue abounds with a number of hitherto unrecognized... more
In this paper I argue that by reading Plato's Republic through the ancient Greek genre of the satyr-play, new insights into his project emerge. I start by showing that the dialogue abounds with a number of hitherto unrecognized satyr-play elements. Second, I argue that the unique form of serious play, characteristic of the ancient Greek satyr-play, helps to explain the kind of stance that Plato hoped to pass on to his readers, which includes a combination of suspicion and engagement, distance and proximity, humor and seriousness in relation to any authoritative utterance, including those coming from his character, Socrates.
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In certain contemporary theories of the politics of shame, shame is considered a pernicious emotion that we need to avoid in, or a salutary emotion that serves as an infallible guide to, democratic deliberation. The author argues that... more
In certain contemporary theories of the politics of shame, shame is considered a pernicious emotion that we need to avoid in, or a salutary emotion that serves as an infallible guide to, democratic deliberation. The author argues that both positions arise out of an inadequate notion of the structure of shame and an over-simplistic opposition between shame and shamelessness. Plato’s dialogue, the Gorgias, actually helps to address these problems because it supplies a deeper understanding of the place of shame in democratic politics in ways that address our contemporary dilemmas. It does this first, by avoiding the simple opposition between shame and shamelessness and secondly, by articulating three different kinds of “politics of shame” that can characterize democratic deliberations. Finally, Plato’s treatment of shame extends upon contemporary ethical and psychoanalytic notions of shame in ways that are directly relevant to the our contemporary political situation.
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This article examines Plato’s critique of, and revisions to, Socratic rationality via a close examination of Socrates’ teaching about the early education of the guardians in the Republic. I argue that Plato’s move to a new more Platonic... more
This article examines Plato’s critique of, and revisions to, Socratic rationality via a close examination of Socrates’ teaching about the early education of the guardians in the Republic. I argue that Plato’s move to a new more Platonic Socrates in Books 2 through 10 of the Republic reflects his revisions to the particular style of rationality exhibited in the arguments of his teacher, Socrates, in Book 1. Plato’s discussion of thumos, the middle part of the soul, shows that he moves to an imagistic and aesthetic notion of rationality to correct the problems with the combative and analytical style practiced by Socrates. At the same time, Plato retains the key elements of his teacher’s philosophy, and this includes their shared notion that any outlook on life that orients itself away from the fact of human mortality is irrational on a foundational level.
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This paper looks at Plato's treatment of mimesis in Books 2 and 3 of the Republic to argue for a new way of understanding the political project of the Republic. Far from being an authoritarian treatise designed to create war-like... more
This paper looks at Plato's treatment of mimesis in Books 2 and 3 of the Republic to argue for a new way of understanding the political project of the Republic. Far from being an authoritarian treatise designed to create war-like philosopher kings, it is seen to be a work wherein Socrates engages in various mimetic activities with his interlocutors in order to make them more thoughtful and engaged democratic citizens. In doing so, Plato hopes to create readers who will constantly contest the manipulative images and fictions that will always be on offer from a polity's democratic leaders.
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This paper challenges Jacques Rancière's characterization of Plato's Republic as being hostile to democratic politics, mimetic activities, and sensory experiences. Instead, through a complex analysis of the importance of thumos in the... more
This paper challenges Jacques Rancière's characterization of Plato's Republic as being hostile to democratic politics, mimetic activities, and sensory experiences. Instead, through a complex analysis of the importance of thumos in the Republic, it shows precisely why Plato was the first theorist to conceive of a democratic politics that involved distributing and disrupting sense, both in Rancière's terms of what makes sense and what can be sensed.
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This paper utilizes a number of different works by Freud in order to understanding the psychic forces of melancholia and mania that were prevalent in Trump and his supporters during his presidential campaign of 2015- 2016. The paper does... more
This paper utilizes a number of different works by Freud in order to understanding the psychic forces of melancholia and mania that were prevalent in Trump and his supporters during his presidential campaign of 2015- 2016. The paper does so by revisiting an early treatment of melancholia in American politics published by Mary Caputo in Theory and Event in 2000.
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In this paper I argue that by reading Plato's Republic through the ancient Greek genre of the satyr-play, new insights into his project emerge. I start by showing that the dialogue abounds with a number of hitherto unrecognized satyr-play... more
In this paper I argue that by reading Plato's Republic through the ancient Greek genre of the satyr-play, new insights into his project emerge. I start by showing that the dialogue abounds with a number of hitherto unrecognized satyr-play elements. Second, I argue that the unique form of serious play, characteristic of the ancient Greek satyr-play, helps to explain the kind of stance that Plato hoped to pass on to his readers, which
includes a combination of suspicion and engagement, distance and proximity, humor and seriousness in relation to any authoritative utterance, including those coming from his character, Socrates.
includes a combination of suspicion and engagement, distance and proximity, humor and seriousness in relation to any authoritative utterance, including those coming from his character, Socrates.
Research Interests:
This essay utilizes Plato’s insights into the role of shame in dialogical interactions to illuminate the aesthetic dimensions of deliberative democracy. Through a close analysis of the refutation of Polus in Plato’s dialogue, the Gorgias,... more
This essay utilizes Plato’s insights into the role of shame in dialogical interactions to illuminate the aesthetic dimensions of deliberative democracy. Through a close analysis of the refutation of Polus in Plato’s dialogue, the Gorgias, I show how the emotion of shame is central to the unsettling, dynamic, and transformative character of democratic engagement and political judgment identified by recent aesthetic critics of Habermas’ model of communicative action and democratic deliberation. Plato’s analysis of shame offers a friendly amendment to these aesthetic critiques by showing how the psychological forces at the heart of shame make the outcome of our political engagements with others uncertain and unsettling, even while they make possible the kind of self-reflexivity necessary to foster the deliberative virtue of sincerity or truthfulness.
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In certain contemporary theories of the politics of shame, shame is considered a pernicious emotion that we need to avoid in, or a salutary emotion that serves as an infallible guide to, democratic deliberation. The author argues that... more
In certain contemporary theories of the politics of shame, shame is considered a pernicious emotion that we need to avoid in, or a salutary emotion that serves as an infallible guide to, democratic deliberation. The author argues that both positions arise out of an inadequate notion of the
structure of shame and an over-simplistic opposition between shame and shamelessness. Plato’s dialogue, the Gorgias, actually helps to address these problems because it supplies a deeper understanding of the place of shame in democratic politics in ways that address our contemporary
dilemmas. It does this first, by avoiding the simple opposition between shame and shamelessness and secondly, by articulating three different kinds of “politics of shame” that can characterize democratic deliberations. Finally, Plato’s treatment of shame extends upon contemporary
ethical and psychoanalytic notions of shame in ways that are directly relevant to the our contemporary political situation.
structure of shame and an over-simplistic opposition between shame and shamelessness. Plato’s dialogue, the Gorgias, actually helps to address these problems because it supplies a deeper understanding of the place of shame in democratic politics in ways that address our contemporary
dilemmas. It does this first, by avoiding the simple opposition between shame and shamelessness and secondly, by articulating three different kinds of “politics of shame” that can characterize democratic deliberations. Finally, Plato’s treatment of shame extends upon contemporary
ethical and psychoanalytic notions of shame in ways that are directly relevant to the our contemporary political situation.
Research Interests:
In recent years, most political theorists have agreed that shame shouldn't play any role in democratic politics because it threatens the mutual respect necessary for participation and deliberation. But Christina Tarnopolsky argues that... more
In recent years, most political theorists have agreed that shame shouldn't play any role in democratic politics because it threatens the mutual respect necessary for participation and deliberation. But Christina Tarnopolsky argues that not every kind of shame hurts democracy. In fact, she makes a powerful case that there is a form of shame essential to any critical, moderate, and self-reflexive democratic practice.
Through a careful study of Plato's Gorgias, Tarnopolsky shows that contemporary conceptions of shame are far too narrow. For Plato, three kinds of shame and shaming practices were possible in democracies, and only one of these is similar to the form condemned by contemporary thinkers. Following Plato, Tarnopolsky develops an account of a different kind of shame, which she calls "respectful shame." This practice involves the painful but beneficial shaming of one's fellow citizens as part of the ongoing process of collective deliberation. And, as Tarnopolsky argues, this type of shame is just as important to contemporary democracy as it was to its ancient form.
Tarnopolsky also challenges the view that the Gorgias inaugurates the problematic oppositions between emotion and reason, and rhetoric and philosophy. Instead, she shows that, for Plato, rationality and emotion belong together, and she argues that political science and democratic theory are impoverished when they relegate the study of emotions such as shame to other disciplines.
Through a careful study of Plato's Gorgias, Tarnopolsky shows that contemporary conceptions of shame are far too narrow. For Plato, three kinds of shame and shaming practices were possible in democracies, and only one of these is similar to the form condemned by contemporary thinkers. Following Plato, Tarnopolsky develops an account of a different kind of shame, which she calls "respectful shame." This practice involves the painful but beneficial shaming of one's fellow citizens as part of the ongoing process of collective deliberation. And, as Tarnopolsky argues, this type of shame is just as important to contemporary democracy as it was to its ancient form.
Tarnopolsky also challenges the view that the Gorgias inaugurates the problematic oppositions between emotion and reason, and rhetoric and philosophy. Instead, she shows that, for Plato, rationality and emotion belong together, and she argues that political science and democratic theory are impoverished when they relegate the study of emotions such as shame to other disciplines.
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Jonny Thakkar's book, Plato as Critical Theorist, begins with the observation that, while ideal theories offering visions of a better future for liberal democracies have waned considerably in recent years, there is widespread discontent... more
Jonny Thakkar's book, Plato as Critical Theorist, begins with the observation that, while ideal theories offering visions of a better future for liberal democracies have waned considerably in recent years, there is widespread discontent with our current situation that actually points to a longing for radical transformation of our political and economic structures (2-4, 16-17). Thakkar's ambition for his book is to work out an ideal theory that bears a relation to our contemporary liberal democratic practices while motivating us to change the problematic aspects of our current societies in relation to a vision of the best possible us (16). The daring wager of Thakkar's book is that Plato, alongside John Rawls and Karl Marx, offers us such an ideal theory, and a notion of what it is to do ideal theorizing, that can supply us with a critical perspective on our current situation, as well as a model of philosophic citizenship that ought to be practiced by all liberal democratic citizens.
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By attending to the dramatic structure as well as the historical and cultural context of Plato's Republic, recent scholars have contested the traditional view of it as an antidemocratic, antirhetorical, antipoetic dialogue which champions... more
By attending to the dramatic structure as well as the historical and cultural context of Plato's Republic, recent scholars have contested the traditional view of it as an antidemocratic, antirhetorical, antipoetic dialogue which champions authoritarian rule by philosopher kings. While building on this new literature, James Kastely's lucid, erudite, and engaging book offers the most extensive treatment to date of the rhetorical character of the dialogue's defense of justice, and of the integral relationship between this kind of philosophical rhetoric and the needs of a democratic polity.