Before and After Sappho: Eudaemonia

Abstract

This experimental essay was solicited for a special issue responding to an essay entitled "Prosperity, Amelioration, Flourishing: From a Logic of Practical Judgment to Reconstruction," by Paul Rabinow. This essay reorients the inquiry towards the flourishing of women, and specifically lesbians, a subject that Rabinow ignores. Focusing on the Greek concept of eudaemonia, upon which Rabinow relies, the essay considers Sappho and some surviving fragments of her work; the Greek goddess Artemis, whose name is appropriated for some present scientific enterprises; and the work of contemporary lesbian poets Olga Broumas and Adrienne Rich.

This essay is the second in a three part series. The first in the series, "Before and After Sappho: Logos," is forthcoming in Trivia: A Journal of Ideas. The third essay, Demokratia," is forthcoming in Stetson Law Review.