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The Tragedy of Tragedy

Duke University, Durham, NC

There are good reasons to consider tragedy, especially Greek tragedy, a resource for current debates in international relations. This is not only because of the ethical and political dilemmas tragedy explores with such dramatic force, but because tragedy is a significant context for reading Thucydides with the political and literary acumen he demands. To ignore this context is to domesticate the ways tragedy challenges both our conventional readings of Thucydides as well as our substantive views of politics and the ways we study it. While this article fully supports the enterprise of invigorating classical realism with the study of tragedy and of posing the question, ‘What can a tragic sensibility contribute to our understanding of international politics?’, it makes that enterprise and that question more rather than less problematic. But it does so in the name of Greek tragedy and for an ultimately more challenging appropriation of it.

Key Words: classical realism • Greek tragedy • international relations • Thucydides

International Relations, Vol. 21, No. 1, 15-22 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0047117807073765


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