Part I. Autochthony Trouble: 1. The metic in and out of theory; 2. Immigrant passing in Euripides' Ion, the tragedy of blood-based membership; Part II. A Metric Republic in Three Acts: 3. The Republic as a metic space; 4. Plato's open decret; 5. Of mimesis and metic: a reading of democracy in Book VIII; Part III. Evading Detection: 6. Citizen passing in Demosthenes 57: the oration of Athenian blood; Conclusion: political theory from the edges of Athenian democracy; Appendix. A metic timeline.
Argues that immigration politics is a central - but overlooked - matter of contestation in the democratic thought of classical Athens.
Demetra Kasimis is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. Her research on classical Greek thought and democratic theory has been funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Council for Learned Societies, and has appeared in such journals as Political Theory and Contemporary Political Theory. The Perpetual Immigrant and the Limits of Athenian Democracy is her first book.
'The Perpetual Immigrant and the Limits of Athenian Democracy
expands the frontier of critical democratic theory by offering
original and insightful readings of Plato's political philosophy,
Euripidean tragedy, and forensic oratory, Demetra Kasimis' probing
analysis of the 'precarious proximity' of metoikoi - long-term
non-native residents of ancient Athens - reveals much about
classical political thought, Athenian history, and the entanglement
of democratic ideals with nativist impulses. This book is both
timely and a work for the ages. It has a great deal to offer to
contemporary political theorists and classical historians alike. It
should be read, pondered, and debated by everyone concerned with
the contested category of democratic citizenship.' Josiah Ober,
Stanford University, California
'Theorizing democratic inclusion and exclusion together,
The Perpetual Immigrant and the Limits of Athenian Democracy
brings to light the ways in which understanding citizenship in
Athenian political thought depends on interrogating the place of
the metic. Attending to figurations of immigrant politics in texts
by Euripides, Plato, and Demosthenes, Demetra Kasimis argues that
political status - metic and/or citizen - is the uncertain and
precarious performance of a naturalized distinction, a performance
because, in truth, not natural at all. Full of provocative readings
of the unstable place of the metic in polis life
alongside shifts in the meaning of democratic citizenship,
Kasimis's book offers a persuasive rejoinder to
nativist readings of the ancient Greeks as well as to the nativist
politics of our times.' Jill Frank, Cornell University, New
York
'In Kasimis's striking revision, the metic's exclusion on the basis
of blood based descent, reveals not the primitive past of ancient
democracy, but the ever-present pull of nativism for stabilizing
democratic equality. This is an enormously generative insight. In
exposing the politicization of identity to be a constitutive effect
of democratic politics, Kasimis attunes us to both the recurring
appeal but also the inherent ambiguity of naturalized categories of
membership - a point she pursues in a bold rereading of the
critical purpose of The Republic. With great subtlety and
sophistication, Kasimis shows us how this ambiguity calls forth
practices of policing and scrutiny that shape and stratify the
lived experience of democratic citizenship.' Karuna Mantena, Yale
University, Connecticut
'Focusing on the inexplicably overlooked but nonetheless
constitutively central role of the figure of metoikoi to both the
practice and critical theory of Athenian democracy, Demetra Kasimis
confronts interpretations of Plato that are not just taken for
granted but which have served as fixed referents for generations of
readers. She then proceeds not to amend or supplement such
readings, but to turn them inside-out entirely, and in the process,
to transform radically not only our readings of the classic texts,
but also our fundamental understanding (historical and conceptual)
of democracy itself. This book powerfully illuminates that
democratic politics are always already metoikia - a politics of
immigration, a politics of resident foreigners, a politics of
participation and status, a politics of insider-outsiders, a
performative politics, a (de)naturalizing politics, a politics of
passing.' Samuel A. Chambers, The Johns Hopkins University
'This theoretically supple and surprisingly timely book probes
overlooked tensions internal to both the reality and the ideal of
ancient Athenian democracy.' Joan Cocks, The Review of Politics
'This is a challenging, but ultimately rewarding, book … Readers in
Classical Studies and in Political Science will find much to ponder
in this stimulating book.' Bryn Mawr Classical Review
'Her interpretive approach is at once sophisticated and clear,
offering a distinctive lens through which we can see the writers
engaging critically with Athenian nativist politics.' Perspectives
on Politics
'… this book is 'good to think with'.' Sehepunkte
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