Grievability and Political Death

Are all deaths equally mournable? Why or why not?

Sophocles’ Antigone is the foundational text on grievability. Antigone risks her life to bury her brother against the state’s decree. What determines whose deaths “count”? Why does she risk her life?

Hannah Arendt’s concept of “superfluous lives” from The Origins of Totalitarianism illuminates how states produce deaths that don’t matter. Judith Butler extends this through her concept of grievability. How does grief become a political instrument?