1st Edition

Abjection, Melancholia and Love The Work of Julia Kristeva

Edited By John Fletcher, Andrew Benjamin Copyright 1990
    224 Pages
    by Routledge

    224 Pages
    by Routledge

    This volume begins with a new essay by Julia Kristeva, ‘The Adolescent Novel’, in which she examines the relation between novelistic writing and the experience of adolescence as an ‘open structure’. It is this blend of the literary with the psychoanalytic that places Kristeva’s work central to current thinking, from semiotics and critical theory to feminism and psychoanalysis.

    The essays in this volume offer insight into the workings of Kristeva’s thought, ranging from her analyses of sexual difference, female temporality and the perceptions of the body to the mental states of abjection and melancholia, and their representation in painting and literature.

    Kristeva’s persistent humanity, her profound understanding of the dynamics of intention and creativity, mark her out as one of the leading theoreticians of desire. Each essay offers the reader a new insight into the many aspects that make up Kristeva’s entire oeuvre.

    Introduction John Fletcher  1. The Adolescent Novel Julia Kristeva  2. Art, Love and Melancholy in the Work of Julia Kristeva John Lechte  3. The An-Arche of Psychotherapy Noreen O’Connor  4. The Ethics of Sexual Difference Alison Ainley  5. Female Temporality and the Future of Feminism Tina Chanter  6. The Body of Signification Elizabeth Gross  7. Geometry and Abjection Victor Burgin  8. Primary Narcissism and the Giving of Figure: Kristeva with Hertz and de Man Cynthia Chase  9. Julia Kristeva: Theorizing the Avant-Garde? Leslie Hill  10. Virginia Woolf: ‘Seen from a Foreign Land’ Makiko Minow-Pinkney  11. Eliot’s Abjection Maud Ellman

    Biography

    John Fletcher (University of Warwick, UK),  Andrew Benjamin (Monash University, Victoria, Australia)