Sparagmos is the the rending or tearing apart (literally, the pulling to pieces) of a living creature. This ritualized form of dismemberment is associated with the female followers of the Greek god Dionysus, who are said to experience a "divine frenzy" when they attack their victim. Euripides' Bacchae includes a number of maenad-driven manglings, culminating in the death of King Pentheus. Other notable human victims of sparagmos are Orpheus (killed by a band of angry Thracian women) and Actaeon (who was torn apart by his own hounds after incurring the wrath of Artemis).
We are starting our literary exploration of sparagmos with Euripides' famed play in order to discover what the "eternal recurrence" of ritualized violence may mean in successive eras (including our own). Few, if any, of us will feel the need to rhapsodize the deaths we encounter on the page, but we should all be prepared to use Plato's early dialogue ("Ion") to define the "the function of criticism at the present time" during our exegetical excursions. (So our initial readings will linger long after our Socratic speculation is submitted. Fasten your fawn skins--it's going to be a bacchanal semester!)
All About Dionysus
Dismemberment, Dionysus, and the Divine
Dionysus is not just known for inspiring sparagmos in his worshippers. According to certain mythic variants (which conflate him with Zagreus), Dionysus was himself torn asunder and eaten before being resurrected. We are focusing on Semele's son, and not other vegetation deities who were also ritualistically dismembered (like Osiris), because it is Dionysus' worship that gave rise to the art of theatre in the west.
If you're curious about those other gods. . .
What We will be exploring
Sparagmos and the state
"Divine frenzy" and "social order" would appear to be mutually exclusive, but there is often a method to this violent "madness," one that outlines social compacts and touches upon the nature of governance. Titus Andronicus makes it abundantly clear that sparagmos can address issues of state.
Sparagmos and "sisterhood"
The violence of sparagmos is decidedly gendered--rendered as a form of female retribution. It is the female followers of Dionysus who dismember in the name of their god, and it is the virgin goddess of the hunt who punishes a male by having him torn limb from limb. Whether the murderous license is considered liberatory or limiting depends on point of view, as Churchill's complex dramaturgy attests.
Sparagmos and the Sacred
In Euripides' play, Pentheus is punished because he will not recognize Dionysus' divinity. Soyinka's adaptation pushes past the pique of an individual god to limn a divine order that maintains a sacred connection to a realm of ancestors. This "communion rite" forges spiritual ties that bind in a secular era that roundly rejects imperial "masks."
Sparagmos and Who can Speak
If a "divine frenzy" casts a spell, who can be said to speak or act in the mystical melee? Agave is speaking and acting on behalf of the god when she identifies her son as a beast. Similar complications (or compromises?) of agency occur in our other works. As we consider these complications, we should be mindful of the critical distance we ourselves possess as readers and define the "magnetic" connection these texts' "performative" emotion can exert. (See, I told you Ion would continue to apply!)
And the social order in our study of "divine frenzy"?
Tearing apart critiques to effect disciplinary rebirth in the neoliberal era!
Capstones can be fully individualized experiences that allow students to workshop their creative or scholarly productions, or they can be communal classes that provide general disciplinary insight and aid. Our course is the latter. Exercises attached to our thematic collection of literature will (hopefully) demonstrate how much your analytical skills and abilities have progressed since you first tackled systematic approaches to literature in ENG 300, and we will all complete work in the "digital humanities" that can be practically utilized in a wide variety of professional careers. Most importantly, though, we will spend the semester outlining the significance and importance of our "academic exercises."
All the talk of "useless degrees" rings somewhat hollow when you stop to consider that most of the "job skills" employers claim to want are cultivated through a liberal arts education. A struggling 5th grader can be taught to enter data in Excel. A college trained employee needs to be able to understand (and, if needs be, infer) data categories and generate and apply definitions. This ability doesn't come from a familiarity with specific software. It comes from deep reading practices and thinking skills honed via written interpretation and analysis.
The growth of "professional" schools, and the "vocational" push throughout education, has not produced the workers that can most benefit society because these recent mechanical "fixes" only ever met a "present need" that will soon be obsolete (like a 2011 "update" to Excel). This point is not more widely recognized because those of us in the liberal arts who are primarily concerned with the education that produces knowledgeable citizens have largely ceded the public rhetorical ground to business, and we have allowed their transactional language to cast figurative and creative discourse, which has transformational potential, as inherently unserious and unerringly impractical. In consequence, their failure of imagination has become ours.
This course operates from the assumption that an unexamined degree is not worth having, and we will examine our degree in ways that will help us all showcase what our intellectual work can and does offer society. (Because, trust me, if you can successfully argue with a Socratic dialogue, you will have no problem convincing your potential employer--or any Jeremy in any HR office--of your innate worth.)
