Open in App

English Literature / Literary Criticism and Theory / Julia Kristeva

Julia Kristeva
Since Dr Sandra Lee (a.k.a., Dr Pimple Popper) joined YouTube in 2010, she has racked up over two billion views. While some viewers may just be
genuinely interested in dermatology, many others watch her work for the thrill of a gross but satisfying 'pop'. But why are some things, like
pimples, considered so disgusting and fascinating at the same time? Julia Kristeva (1941–present) created an entire theory dedicated to
answering this question. Let's take a closer look at Kristeva's theories of abjection and the semiotic, two of her pivotal contributions to feminist
and literary theory.

Explore our app and discover over 50 million learning materials for free.

Sign-up for free!

English Literature / Literary Criticism and Theory / Julia Kristeva

Julia Kristeva
American Drama

American Literary
Movements

American Literature

American Poetry

American Regionalism
Literature

American Short Fiction

Dramatists

Essayists

Literary Criticism and

Theory

Aristotle

Bell Hooks

Critical Race Theory

Cultural Studies

Deconstruction
Derrick Bell
Open in App
Disability Theory

Eco-Criticism

Edward Said

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick

F. R. Leavis

Feminist Literary Criticism

Ferdinand Saussure

Formalism Literary Theory

Fredric Jameson

Freudian Criticism

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

Harold Bloom

Helene Cixous

Homi Bhabha

Intersectionality

Jacques Derrida

Jacques Lacan

James Wood

Jean Baudrillard

Jean-Francois Lyotard

Julia Kristeva

Kimberle Crenshaw

Luce Irigaray

Marxism Literary Criticism

Mikhail Bakhtin

Narratology

New Historicism

Patricia J. Williams

Post-Structuralism

Postcolonial Literary Theory

Postmodern Literary Theory

Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism

Queer Theory

Raymond Williams

Reader Response Criticism

Roland Barthes

Roman Jakobson

Rosemarie Garland Thomson

Stephen Greenblatt

Structuralism Literary Theory

Terry Eagleton
 Walter Benjamin
Open in App
Walter Pater

Literary Devices

Literary Elements

Literary Movements

Literary Studies

Non-Fiction Authors

Novelists

Poets

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Test your knowledge with multiple choice flashcards

1/3

Julia Kristeva is a prominent figure from which literary movement

Which three of the following are main tenets of post-structuralist
Which of the follow
during the 1960s and 70s in France? literary criticism? as her doctoral thes

Aestheticism Texts Should Be Analysed As Products Of The Structures

Black
Of Sun: Depre
Knowledge That Produced Them.
Romanticism Revolution In Poe
Literary Critics Should Focus On The Aesthetics Of A Text Rather
Structuralism Than Its Political Meaning. Tales Of Love

Post-Structuralism A Text's Author Doesn't Have Authority Over Its Meaning.

Powers Of Horror

Meaning Is Unstable And Always Subject To Change.

Learn with 15 Julia Kristeva flashcards in Learn with 15 Julia Kristeva flashcards in
the free StudySmarter app the free StudySmarter app
Learn with 15 Julia Kristeva flashcards in
the free StudySmarter app

Julia Kristeva: contribution to literary theory

Julia Kristeva (also known as Yuliya Stoyanova Krasteva) is a French-Bulgarian writer, psychoanalyst, and prominent figure in the development of post-structuralist
literary theory. After completing her linguistics degree at the University of Sofia in Bulgaria, Kristeva moved to Paris in 1966, where post-structuralism was in full
swing.

Definition

Post-structuralism: an intellectual movement originating in France during the 1960s and 70s.
Post-structuralists built on structuralist ideas in the fields of semiotics and anthropology. Structuralists believed that human culture and language were made up of
Open inunits
universal structures. As a result, structuralists argued that culture and language, despite their vast complexity, could be broken down into their smallest App of
meaning and analysed at the most basic level.

Definition

Semiotics: the study of the signs and symbols used in human communication.

Post-structuralists, such as Julia Kristeva, took this argument further by saying that these smallest units of meaning could change. This had huge implications – if
culture and language were built on unstable foundations, there could be no absolute truths. The post-structuralists encouraged people to question everything, and
this has had a huge influence on literary theory.
The main tenets of post-structuralist literary criticism include:

Meaning is unstable and always subject to change.

A text's author doesn't have authority over its meaning.
Texts should be analysed as products of the structures of knowledge that produced them.

Did you know? Other post-structuralist thinkers include Jaques Lacan (1901–81), Roland Barthes (1915–80), and Michel Foucault (1926–84).

Do you want to see this and many more great

infographics?

SIGN UP NOW FOR FREE

Fig. 1 - For post-structuralists, the structures that make up culture and language are fluid and unstable.

In 2004, Kristeva's contributions to the humanities and social sciences were honoured by the Holberg International Memorial Prize. She was praised for her
'innovative explorations of questions on the intersection of language, culture and literature', including her theories of the semiotic and objection, which will be
explored in more detail later.1
Thanks to this ad, StudySmarter remains free:
Open in App

Remove Ads? Sign up for free

Julia Kristeva: books

Over the course of her career, Julia Kristeva has published more than 30 books so far, including:

Revolution in Poetic Language (1974)

Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (1980)
Tales of Love (1984)
Black Sun: Depression and Melancholia (1987)
Strangers to Ourselves (1988)

Revolution in Poetic Language and Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection contain Kristeva's most influential theories of the semiotic and abjection.

Julia Kristeva: feminist theory

Julia Kristeva has a complicated relationship with feminism. Some hail Kristeva's works as influential within feminist scholarship, while others argue that Kristeva's
views don't fit with feminist ideals. Kristeva herself has even been known not to identify with feminism.2

D fi i i
 Definition
Open in App
Feminism: a movement advocating women's rights and the equality of the sexes by challenging patriarchal structures in society (structures that favour men
as the key holders of power)
In pure post-structuralist fashion, it's best not to focus too much on Kristeva's personal opinions about feminism. Instead, look at her theory and how it has
contributed to feminist thought to better use it in literary analysis.

Revolution in Poetic Language and 'the semiotic'

Julia Kristeva's dissertation, Revolution in Poetic Language, has often been cited in feminist scholarship. In the text, Kristeva expands on the field of semiotics
previously developed by the linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913), who famously proposed that language is structured from linguistic signs.

Definition

Linguistic signs: a combination of the signifier (something that communicates meaning, like a word or sound pattern) and the signified (a meaning or
concept).

Example

The word 'tree' is a sign. Whatever image pops into your or your communication partner's head when the word 'tree' is read or spoken is the signified. This
image becomes connected to the word 'tree' through the signification process.

Kristeva looks at semiotics through the lens of psychoanalysis. Kristeva uses the theories of the famous psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) and especially
Jaques Lacan to explore how the psychosexual development of femininity and masculinity influences language and meaning.

Definition

Psychoanalysis: a branch of psychology that looks at the relationship between the conscious and unconscious mind and the effects this has on human
development and behaviour.

For Kristeva, signification in a language isn't just a matter of peacefully and logically organising human thought into the sign and the signified. No, no! The process
of signification is a constant battle between the symbolic (ordered, logical thinking) and the semiotic (instinctive, emotional feeling).

This is a battle that can never be won by either side because language needs both the symbolic and the semiotic to exist. As this push and pull is a constant
process, nothing can have a single, fixed meaning.

Remember: what Julia Kristeva terms 'the semiotic' isn't the same as Saussure's 'semiotics'. When Kristeva talks about 'the semiotic', she is talking about the
instincts and emotions through which an infant experiences the world before they develop a sense of self and the ability to use and understand language.

Do you want to see this and many more great

infographics?

SIGN UP NOW FOR FREE

 Open in App

Fig. 2 - For Julia Kristeva, language is the product of interactions between the symbolic (ordered, logical thinking) and the semiotic (instinctive, emotional feeling).

So, how does this come into feminist theory?

To begin with, Kristeva associates the symbolic with masculinity and the semiotic with femininity because of the close relationship between mother and child
before language development. In Revolution in Poetic Language, Kristeva highlights the vital and revolutionary role of the feminine and femininity in the
development of language and culture.

Although it could seem like Kristeva emphasises stereotypes of sexual difference in her semiotic theory, this is not strictly the case. For Kristeva, femininity and
masculinity are not necessarily tied to biological sex.2 Kristeva rejects the idea that men and women are intrinsically different. Instead, she sees identity as
something fluid and ever-changing.

Food for thought: Some feminist theorists see these ideas as liberating. Others see Kristeva's arguments as too contradictory due to the stereotypical
connections she draws between femininity/maternity and masculinity/patriarchy. What do you think?

Stay organized and focused

Collect and manage all your study materials in one
place in the StudySmarter app.

Sign up for free

Julia Kristeva: abjection theory

Developed from her theory of the semiotic, Julia Kristeva's theory of abjection is fascinated with everything disgustingly horrifying, why it grosses us out, and why
we are sometimes still drawn to it.

The theory is often included in literary analysis of the horror genre.

Definition

Horror genre: a genre of literature that seeks to entertain its audience by disgusting, shocking, or scaring them.

Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection

In Powers of Horror, Kristeva explores the abject and abjection.

D fi i i
 Definition
Open in App
The abject: things that make humans feel horror and disgust because they blur the delicate boundary between the subject ('the self') and the object ('the
other').

Abjection: the act of separating the subject from the object.

So what causes certain things to be abject, and why do we abject them?

According to psychoanalytic theory, six to 18-month-old babies go through 'the mirror stage' during psychosexual development. Before this period, they see
themselves as part of their mother. This changes during the mirror stage as babies begin to recognise their reflections and see themselves as individuals. They
become 'the self', and their mother becomes 'the other'.

Deep dive
The psychoanalytic theory of the mirror stage (in which 'the self' and 'the other' become separated) has been influential in discussions about why
humans tend to structure themselves into groups of 'us' vs 'them'.

The postcolonial scholar Gayatri Spivak, for example, coined the term 'othering' to describe how colonisers constructed and maintained images of
colonised natives as different and inferior to them.

The rejection of the mother during the mirror stage is the first act of abjection. Over the course of our lives, we continue to abject anything that threatens a stable
sense of self-identity and meaning. When we encounter things that are abject, we tend to feel horror and disgust.

Example

Think of the skin on a warm glass of milk. It's just milk, but there's something icky about it. According to Kristeva, this is because milk skin is 'abject'.

The layer of skin creates a split in a person's mind. The milk skin is both part of and separate from the milk at the same time. It also blurs the boundary
between self and other by resembling our own skin, which should protect us from the outside world instead of being ingested.
Other things that could be described as abject include wounds, blood, pus, and decay because they tap into our deepest fears of cleanliness, order, and the self.
Yet, while these things can horrify or disgust us, we may also be drawn to them because they represent deep desires towards the parts of ourselves we repress to
maintain order in our lives.

Find relevant study materials

Access thousands of Study Sets from our experts and
other users in the StudySmarter app.

Sign up for free

Julia Kristeva: quotes

How did Julia Kristeva think her theories were connected to the study of literature? Here are some quotes where she joins the dots.

Since the end of the nineteenth century, 'poetry' has deliberately maintained the balance between sociality and madness. (Chapter 5, Revolution in Poetic
Language).

Kristeva sees poetry and poetic language as revolutionary because of their close connections to the emotional, instinctive realm of language and meaning-making:
the semiotic.

Because it occupies its place, because it hence decks itself out in the sacred power of horror, literature may also involve not an ultimate resistance to but an
unveiling of the abject. (Chapter 11, Powers of Horror).

In this quote, Kristeva explores how literature is a productive space in which we can experience the abject from a safe distance. Rather than confront the abject
directly, we can read about it.
 Open in App
Julia Kristeva - Key takeaways

Julia Kristeva is a French-Bulgarian writer, psychoanalyst, and prominent figure in the development of post-structuralist
literary theory.

Julia Kristeva's theories of the semiotic and abjection have been highly influential within feminist and literary
scholarship.

Over the course of her career, Julia Kristeva has published more than 30 books so far, including Revolution in Poetic
Language (1974) and Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (1980).

Julia Kristeva's theory of the semiotic argued that nothing can have a fixed, stable meaning.

Julia Kristeva's theory of abjection explores how and why humans tend to feel horror or disgust towards certain things
and why we are often still drawn to them.

1 The Holberg Committee. 'The Holberg Prize 2004 was awarded to the Bulgarian-French psychoanalyst and philosopher Julia Kristeva.' Holberg Prize. 2004.

2 Toril Moi. 'Introduction'. The Kristeva Reader. Columbia University Press. 1986.

Frequently Asked Questions about Julia Kristeva

Q: What is Julia Kristeva's theory?

A: Julia Kristeva's theory on the abject states that a person's reaction to a threatened breakdown in meaning is due to not being able to
distinguish between one's self and an otherness. Essentially, people feel horror or revulsion when coming across things that we deem gross
or terrifying.

Q: Does Julia Kristeva write in French?

A: Yes, Kristeva generally writes in French.

Q: What is the abject according to Julia Kristeva?

A: The abject is whatever makes humans feel horror and disgust because they blur the delicate boundary between the subject ('the self') and
the object ('the other').

Q: Who is Julia Kristeva?

A: Julia Kristeva is a French-Bulgarian writer, psychoanalyst, and prominent figure in the development of post-structuralist literary theory.
60% of the users don't pass the Julia Kristeva quiz! Will you pass the quiz?
Q: Is Julia Kristeva a feminist?
START QUIZ

A: Julia Kristeva has a complicated relationship with feminism. Some hail Kristeva's works as influential within feminist scholarship, while
others argue that Kristeva's views don't fit with feminist ideals. Kristeva herself has even been known not to identify with feminism.

Flashcards in Julia Kristeva 15 Start learning

 What is Julia Kristeva's nationality?
Open in App

French-Bulgarian

Julia Kristeva is a prominent figure from which literary movement during the 1960s and 70s in France?

Structuralism

Which three of the following are main tenets of post-structuralist literary criticism?

Meaning is unstable and always subject to change.

Which of the following books by Julia Kristeva was originally published as her doctoral thesis?

Revolution in Poetic Language

True or false: Julia Kristeva doesn't identify herself as a feminist.

True.

Which famous linguist proposed that language is structured from linguistic signs?

Ferdinand de Saussure

Learn with 15 Julia Kristeva flashcards in the free StudySmarter app

SIGNUP

MORE ABOUT JULIA KRISTEVA

Novelists Literary Movements American Literary Movements Literary Devices

Join over 22 million students in learning with our StudySmarter App

The first learning app that truly has everything you need to ace your exams in one place
Open in App

Flashcards & Quizzes

AI Study Assistant

Study Planner

Mock-Exams

Smart Note-Taking

Create your free account now

English (UK)

Company

Career

About Us

Product

Exams

Explanations

For Companies

Magazine

Help

Contact

Help Center

© 2024 StudySmarter GmbH

Terms Privacy
Open in App