Achilles' penis. A queer and trans look at the Iliad. This is the title of a seminar organized on March 4 at the Ecole Normale Supérieure of Pisa and followed by another the next day: Lunar phalluses, hairy speakers and pregnant gods. Anxieties related to disability and gender in Luciano di Samosata. And the day after the last meeting, the seminars are already being debated. The university's idea, as it explains on its website, was to offer a key to understanding the famous epic poem – attributed to the ancient Greek poet Homer – through “the emotional journey” of the character Achilles “from anger to mourning”. the death of Patroclus and his attempt to withdraw from battle and choose survival over heroic death. »
The gender perspective
The discussion on the subject was therefore approached from the perspective of gender studies, an approach which – specifies the Normale di Pisa – “offers new opportunities to consider the character and experience of Achilles as a queer and trans affective experience “. The second seminar is also in the same vein, in which the satire of Lucian of Samosata (2nd century AD) is used to speak of a “chauvinistic society”. From the Tuscan university, they explain: “In a period of crisis of classic social identities, Lucian satire offers a critique of contemporary gender and class norms, notably through the use of disabled characters or presented as subjects of discussion medical. Hephaestus, Thersites, the men of the moon, and even Zeus become examples of a struggling masculine identity. »
Controversy
However, some do not seem to digest such an open vision on the subject. Columns of Free, Giovanni Sallusti attacks the Normale conferences, accusing them of “Cancel Culture”. Or rather “Reset Culture”. According to him, “the literary heritage was updated based on the ideological fears of the resettled. So – he continues – there is no past to study, but only an eternal and sparkling present, from Achilles to Vladimir Luxuria, where the categories of the second are valid, even if we continue to do the exegesis of the first”. Sallusti then gets carried away in his historical analysis, recognizing that the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus “has a clear homosexual echo”, but – according to him – the type of relationship and the context of the time ” do not make the hero an LGBT archetype.”
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