Julia Kristeva
Julia Kristeva (born 24 June 1941) is a famous Bulgarian philosopher, psychoanalyst, feminist, and, most recently, novelist, who has been living in France since the middle of the 1960s. Her works have an important place in post-structuralist thought.
Born in Bulgaria, Kristeva moved in her late teens to France, where she continued her education at several universities. She arrived there just in time to experience the rapidly waning influence of structuralism, which was being challenged by Foucault and Derrida, among others. In some ways, her work can be seen as trying to adapt a psychoanalytic approach to these poststructuralist critiques.
For example, her view of the subject, and its construction, shares many similarities with Freud and Lacan. However, Kristeva rejects any formal systematical (or structuralist) understanding of the subject in favor of a subject perpetually "in process" or "in crisis." In this way, she addresses the poststructuralist critique of essentialized structures, while preserving a psychoanalytic approach.
One of Kristeva's most important propositions is her idea of the semiotic. For Kristeva, the semiotic is closely related to the infantile (pre-mirror) state in both Lacan and Freud. It is an emotional force, tied to our instincts, which exists in the fissures and prosody of language rather than in the denotative meanings of words. In this sense, the semiotic is opposed to the symbolic, which refers to a more denotative almost mathematical relation of words to meaning. Kristeva's use of semiotic here should not be confused with the much different, earlier use of Saussure.
Julia Kristeva is married to the French writer Philippe Sollers.
About her work
Kristeva draws the line between anthropology and psychology, the connection between the social and the subject: they do not represent each other, but rather follow the same logic: their well-being, which is the survival of the group and subject. Furthermore, in her analysis of Oedipus, she claims that the speaking subject cannot exist on his own, but that he "stands on the fragile threshold as if stranded on account of an impossible demarcation" (Powers of Horror, p. 85).
In her comparison, Kristeva claims that the way in which an individual excludes the abject mother as means of forming an identity, is the same way in which societies are constructed. Cultures exclude the maternal and the feminine, and by this come into being. By this she follows Mary Douglas, who made a longer line, between the body – subject – society, thus adding biology to anthropology and psychology.
Bibliography
In English, from http://www.text-semiotics.org/Kristeva.html#eng
- Kristeva et al.1971 : Kristeva, J., J.Rey-Debove, D.J.Umiker (eds), Essays in semiotics. Essais de sémiotique, Paris ; La Haye : Mouton, 1971.
- Kristeva 1977 : Kristeva, J., About Chinese Women, (translated from the French by A.Barrows), London : M. Boyars, 1977.
- Kristeva 1980 : Kristeva, J., Desire in language : a semiotic approach to literature and art,(ed. by L.S.Roudiez ; transl. by T.Gora, A.Jardine, and L.S.Roudiez), New York : Columbia University Press, 1980
- Kristeva et al.1981 : Kristeva, J., in Jardine, A., A.Kuhn, H.V.Wenzel, L.S. Robinson, French feminist theory, Chicago : The University of Chicago press, 1981.
- Kristeva 1982 : Kristeva, J., Powers of horror : an essay on abjection, (transl. by L.S.Roudiez), New York : Columbia University Press, 1982.
- Kristeva 1984 : Kristeva, J., Revolution in poetic language, (transl. by M.Waller ; with an introduction by L.S.Roudiez), New York : Columbia University Press, 1984.
- Kristeva 1986 : Kristeva, J., The Kristeva reader, (ed. by T.Moi), New York : Columbia University Press, 1986.
- Kristeva 1987 : Kristeva, J., In the beginning was love : psychoanalysis and faith, (transl. by A.Goldhammer), New York : Columbia University Press, 1987.
- Kristeva 1987 : Kristeva, J., Tales of love, (transl. by L.S.Roudiez), New York : Columbia University Press, 1987.
- Kristeva 1989 : Kristeva, J., Language--the unknown : an initiation into linguistics, (transl. by A.M.Menke), New York : Columbia University Press, 1989.
- Kristeva 1989 : Kristeva, J., Black sun : depression and melancholia, (translated by L.S.Roudi), New York : Columbia University Press, 1989.
- Kristeva 1991 : Kristeva, J., Strangers to ourselves, (transl. by L.S.Roudiez), New York : Columbia University Press, 1991.
- Kristeva 1993 : Kristeva, J., Proust and the sense of time, (transl., and with an introduction by S.Bann), New York : Columbia University Press, 1993.
- Kristeva 1993 : Kristeva, J., Nations without nationalism, (transl. by L.S.Roudiez), New York : Columbia University Press, 1993.
- Kristeva 1995 : Kristeva, J., New maladies of the soul, (transl. by R.Guberman), New York : Columbia University Press, 1995.
- Kristeva 1996 : Kristeva, J., Time & sense : Proust and the experience of literature, (transl. by R.Guberman), New York : Columbia University Press, 1996.
- Kristeva 1996 : Julia Kristeva, interviews, (ed. by Ross Mitchell Guberman), New York : Columbia University Press, 1996.
- Kristeva 1997 : Oliver, K., (ed)., The portable Kristeva, New York : Columbia University Press, 1997.
- Kristeva 2000 : Kristeva, J., The sense and non-sense of revolt, (translated by J.Herman), New York : Columbia University Press, 2000.
- Kristeva 2000 : Kristeva, J., Crisis of the European subject, (translated by S.Fairfield ; with an introduction by S.Dayal), New York : Other Press, 2000.
- Kristeva et al.2001 : Clément, C., et J.Kristeva, The feminine and the sacred, (translated by J.M.Todd), New York : Columbia University Press, 2001.
- Kristeva 2001 : Kristeva, J., Hannah Arendt, New York : Columbia University Press, 2001.