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Strangers to Ourselves
This book is concerned with the notion of the "stranger" -the foreigner, outsider, or alien in a country and society not their own- as well as the notion of strangeness within the self -a person's deep sense of being, as distinct from outside appearance and their conscious idea of self.
Kristeva begins with the personal and moves outward by examining world literature and philosophy. She discusses the foreigner in Greek tragedy, in the Bible, and in the literature of the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Enlightenment, and the twentieth century. She discusses the legal status of foreigners throughout history, gaining perspective on our own civilization. Her insights into the problems of nationality, particularly in France, are more timely and relevant in an increasingly integrated and fractious world.
Kristeva begins with the personal and moves outward by examining world literature and philosophy. She discusses the foreigner in Greek tragedy, in the Bible, and in the literature of the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Enlightenment, and the twentieth century. She discusses the legal status of foreigners throughout history, gaining perspective on our own civilization. Her insights into the problems of nationality, particularly in France, are more timely and relevant in an increasingly integrated and fractious world.
230 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
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2221 people want to read
About the author
Julia Kristeva
204 books822 followersJulia Kristeva is professor emerita of linguistics at the Université de Paris VII and author of many acclaimed works. Her Columbia University Press books include Hatred and Forgiveness (2012); The Severed Head: Capital Visions (2014); and, with Philippe Sollers, Marriage as a Fine Art (2016).
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
July 21, 2021
Forced by our culture to simultaneously consider an 'us' and an opposite 'other', an identical and its alien, the foreigner is mostly a metaphor of distance, a non-self that we construct within ourselves to stand in stark opposition to us. We are foreigners to ourselves. Kristeva writes that the foreigner is a symptom, a signifier of the difficulty we encounter while living as an 'other'.
With its very poetic writing that somehow establishes a feeling of tranquility while expounding aggression, this book for most parts is a cultural and historical examination of the 'foreigner'. Contrasting cosmopolitanism with xenophobia against shifting backgrounds, Julia Kristeva tries to write about the foreigner in relation to an individual 'I', and about how by confronting the foreigner whom we simultaneously reject and identify with, we lose our boundaries.
Strangely, the foreigner lives within us: he is the hidden face of our identity, the space that wrecks our abode, the time in which understanding and affinity founder. By recognizing him within ourselves, we are spared detesting him in himself. A symptom that precisely turns "we" into a problem, perhaps makes it impossible, The foreigner comes in when the consciousness of my difference arises, and he disappears when we all acknowledge ourselves as foreigners, unamenable to bonds and communities.
The uncanny, the foreigner is within us. We are all our own foreigners, always from separated from others and from ourselves, Hierocles' concentric circles get larger and larger.
With its very poetic writing that somehow establishes a feeling of tranquility while expounding aggression, this book for most parts is a cultural and historical examination of the 'foreigner'. Contrasting cosmopolitanism with xenophobia against shifting backgrounds, Julia Kristeva tries to write about the foreigner in relation to an individual 'I', and about how by confronting the foreigner whom we simultaneously reject and identify with, we lose our boundaries.
Strangely, the foreigner lives within us: he is the hidden face of our identity, the space that wrecks our abode, the time in which understanding and affinity founder. By recognizing him within ourselves, we are spared detesting him in himself. A symptom that precisely turns "we" into a problem, perhaps makes it impossible, The foreigner comes in when the consciousness of my difference arises, and he disappears when we all acknowledge ourselves as foreigners, unamenable to bonds and communities.
The uncanny, the foreigner is within us. We are all our own foreigners, always from separated from others and from ourselves, Hierocles' concentric circles get larger and larger.
June 1, 2014
One of the most popular Kristeva’s book is discovering the question of identity. Today this question might be felled of empty determinations. Who am I? How could I behave? These problems were asked by ancient philosophers, but in modern culture they are essential again (as every fundamental issue). Reading this book I couldn’t really found out the fundamental answers. It seems that Kristeva deeply understands the meaning of question and she also correctly asks us about identity. But farther and farter it gets harder to understand where she sees the possible answers.
The most interesting sections of this work are the earliest chapters. Kristeva seems to run out of steam and stop abruptly once she begins to discuss foreignness and strangeness in contemporary culture. She analyzes her own experience in France and says that not really feels like at home. There is a closed cycle: she doesn’t feel at home outside of France. That’s why she emphasizes the main core of her book: we are strangers for ourselves in this world (in a way of existentialism, especially it reminds Søren Kierkegaard). Kristeva writes: Free of ties with his own people, the foreigner feels “completely free”. Nevertheless, the consummate name of such freedom is solitude.
In this case it helpfully to read the Chapter 4 Knowing who we are where Kristeva tries to understand not only cultural or social roots of our identity, but tries to examine ontological basis of it. The main thesis of this and next chapters is that we are often wrong about why we do something and even about how we felt. The author reminds us about Cartesian tradition of subject and its feelings. But I don’t think that is right step of analysis, because it goes away to abstract concepts from the main problem. I absolutely understand this logic and if I had a chance to write this research I’d do it in the same way. Yet, I guess it is the wrong way where have been fully crashed many modern projects (include the project of identity).
This book has helped me to realize how extremely we depend from our cultural background. When we try to run away from our culture we must rebuild not only ourselves, but also others. And every time it looks like endless game with mirrors.
The most interesting sections of this work are the earliest chapters. Kristeva seems to run out of steam and stop abruptly once she begins to discuss foreignness and strangeness in contemporary culture. She analyzes her own experience in France and says that not really feels like at home. There is a closed cycle: she doesn’t feel at home outside of France. That’s why she emphasizes the main core of her book: we are strangers for ourselves in this world (in a way of existentialism, especially it reminds Søren Kierkegaard). Kristeva writes: Free of ties with his own people, the foreigner feels “completely free”. Nevertheless, the consummate name of such freedom is solitude.
In this case it helpfully to read the Chapter 4 Knowing who we are where Kristeva tries to understand not only cultural or social roots of our identity, but tries to examine ontological basis of it. The main thesis of this and next chapters is that we are often wrong about why we do something and even about how we felt. The author reminds us about Cartesian tradition of subject and its feelings. But I don’t think that is right step of analysis, because it goes away to abstract concepts from the main problem. I absolutely understand this logic and if I had a chance to write this research I’d do it in the same way. Yet, I guess it is the wrong way where have been fully crashed many modern projects (include the project of identity).
This book has helped me to realize how extremely we depend from our cultural background. When we try to run away from our culture we must rebuild not only ourselves, but also others. And every time it looks like endless game with mirrors.
November 8, 2016
A sad sack of induction fallacies. It horrifies me to hear Kristeva's woebegone personal experiences projected into vague half-truths about the identity of the immigrant populace. Her positioning of the foreigner as an Abject entity holds these people in bad faith, with the discourse of this novel only limiting the potential of the immigrant as a viable and autonomous entity. Furthermore, constant citations of the Ancient Greek philosophic greats is grating and unoriginal. I shut this book with a sour face.
November 4, 2008
The problem that I had with this book is that it takes what appears to be a personal experience and universalizes that experience as one of all foreigners. The language that is employed here almost seems like it would work better as an autobiography or fiction.
The historical facts given work as a survey of the notion of the stranger/foreigner throughout centuries, but the first chapter, which is the account of what the foreigner experiences in the contemporary world, is very detached from the rest of the book. As charming as it may be to read about how the perception of the foreigner has kept changing in history, it fails to shed light on the current agenda.
The last two chapters of the book focus on a political solution that derives from psychoanalysis, stating that with Freud's notion of the uncanny, one realizes the strangeness of oneself. The result is thus a utopian wish for individuals to situate themselves as foreigners to themselves, the result of which is to embrace other individuals on account of this realization. There remains yet another point of doubt here for one who is skeptic of psychoanalysis. I am not convinced that emancipation for immigrants and exiles will be achieved through acceptance of psychoanalytic discourse.
The historical facts given work as a survey of the notion of the stranger/foreigner throughout centuries, but the first chapter, which is the account of what the foreigner experiences in the contemporary world, is very detached from the rest of the book. As charming as it may be to read about how the perception of the foreigner has kept changing in history, it fails to shed light on the current agenda.
The last two chapters of the book focus on a political solution that derives from psychoanalysis, stating that with Freud's notion of the uncanny, one realizes the strangeness of oneself. The result is thus a utopian wish for individuals to situate themselves as foreigners to themselves, the result of which is to embrace other individuals on account of this realization. There remains yet another point of doubt here for one who is skeptic of psychoanalysis. I am not convinced that emancipation for immigrants and exiles will be achieved through acceptance of psychoanalytic discourse.
February 23, 2020
Two stars for some coherent and fresh thoughts in the opening, what followed was a dry textbook history lesson without relevance and insight.
August 2, 2024
I much prefer The Power of Horror when it comes to Kristeva’s work. Strangers to Ourselves feels a bit disjointed, and, in conjunction with the large body of work in post-colonial theory, feels less notable. Exploration of the shifts in etymology holds some points of interest, but the book feels in need of some stronger connective tissue to be transformative for anyone who has spent years with post-colonialism. I did, however, find myself invested in the sections dedicated to cosmopolitanism.
May 4, 2024
Kristeva's historical, philosophical and religious analysis of the concept of the foreigner was so interesting to read.
February 5, 2016
Kristeva profundiza en la noción del extranjero en un libro precioso pero desparejo. Sus reflexiones están muy bellamente expuestas, sobre todo en los primeros capítulos, en los que aborda diferentes temas relacionados con el "sentir migrante" a través de una prosa que se aleja de la frialdad académica para intimar más con el lector (que se presupone también extranjero, claro que no es requisito obligatorio para disfrutar del texto). Sin embargo, esta subjetividad inicial, que para mí era gran parte del atractivo del libro, va perdiendo fuerza en cuanto entramos al recorrido histórico y Kristeva como migrante pasa a un segundo plano. Más allá de este desequilibrio, me ha resultado una lectura interesante, reveladora por momentos (el capítulo de Freud), y -esto ya es más personal - también muy balsámica. La recomiendo.
July 6, 2021
Kristeva does a fantastic job of tracing the etymology of the word foreigner and how it’s definition has changed throughout times and different cultures. Fascinating reading written in a distinct prose style. Explores psychoanalytic theory and how the artificial self defines itself through the Other.
September 19, 2013
Being an outsider and knowing what happens with tribal issues of acceptance of those like me, I love the revelation of Kristeva's exploration of otherness and feel validated for the first time.
March 18, 2025
Chapter 8 and 9 are very nice, the rest did not really catch my attention. The overall writing style is a little intense, a bit overly intellectual, and made me feel overwhelmed. However, if you read these final two chapters more like a poem, it is absolutely amazing and can serve as an inspiration for a universalist ethics of the foreigner within.
"The foreigner is within us. And when we flee from or struggle against the foreigner, we are fighting our unconscious - that "improper" facet of our impossible "own and proper. Delicately, analytically, Freud does not speak of foreigners: he teaches us how to detect foreignness in ourselves" (p. 191).
&
"By recognizing our uncanny strangeness we shall neither suffer from it nor enjoy it from the outside. The foreigner is within me, hence we are all foreigners. If I am a foreigner, there are no foreigners" (p. 192).
&
"The ethics of psychoanalysis implies a politics : it would involve a cosmopolitanism of a new sort that, cutting across governments, economies, and markets, might work for a mankind whose solidarity is founded on the consciousness of its unconscious - desiring, destructive, fearful, empty, impossible" (p. 192).
&
"A paradoxical community is emerging, made up of foreigners who are reconciled with themselves to the extent that they recognize themselves as foreigners. The multinational society would thus be the consequence of an extreme individualism, but conscious of its discontents and limits, knowing only indomitable people ready-to-help-themselves in their weakness, a weakness whose other name is our radical strangeness" (p. 195).
"The foreigner is within us. And when we flee from or struggle against the foreigner, we are fighting our unconscious - that "improper" facet of our impossible "own and proper. Delicately, analytically, Freud does not speak of foreigners: he teaches us how to detect foreignness in ourselves" (p. 191).
&
"By recognizing our uncanny strangeness we shall neither suffer from it nor enjoy it from the outside. The foreigner is within me, hence we are all foreigners. If I am a foreigner, there are no foreigners" (p. 192).
&
"The ethics of psychoanalysis implies a politics : it would involve a cosmopolitanism of a new sort that, cutting across governments, economies, and markets, might work for a mankind whose solidarity is founded on the consciousness of its unconscious - desiring, destructive, fearful, empty, impossible" (p. 192).
&
"A paradoxical community is emerging, made up of foreigners who are reconciled with themselves to the extent that they recognize themselves as foreigners. The multinational society would thus be the consequence of an extreme individualism, but conscious of its discontents and limits, knowing only indomitable people ready-to-help-themselves in their weakness, a weakness whose other name is our radical strangeness" (p. 195).
September 30, 2025
This stirred up the same feelings as reading my own undergraduate essays years after completing them (likely minutes before the deadline). The book can’t help but contradict itself every time it tries to distill better material into a new theory of civilization;
For instance, the last page argues there are no viable community bonds in the present day outside of religion, only a few chapters after citing philosophers from the RENNAISSANCE that de-emphasize or ignore religion in their theories of social life. I got offended on behalf of Hannah Arendt when the last page also suggested granting distinct rights to citizens over ‘foreigners’ despite invoking Arendt’s arguements on genealogy which basically state that we have arranged ourselves genetically, not that we SHOULD. All of this garbage on one page, that’s kind of impressive.
Gross and hasty generalizations are made here by the author to support a clunky thesis statement, born out of her own personal crisis of franco-identity.
For instance, the last page argues there are no viable community bonds in the present day outside of religion, only a few chapters after citing philosophers from the RENNAISSANCE that de-emphasize or ignore religion in their theories of social life. I got offended on behalf of Hannah Arendt when the last page also suggested granting distinct rights to citizens over ‘foreigners’ despite invoking Arendt’s arguements on genealogy which basically state that we have arranged ourselves genetically, not that we SHOULD. All of this garbage on one page, that’s kind of impressive.
Gross and hasty generalizations are made here by the author to support a clunky thesis statement, born out of her own personal crisis of franco-identity.
May 2, 2024
Indrukwekkend pleidooi voor kosmopolitisme. Dit boek wordt helaas urgenter elke week. Het is een Westerse geschiedenis van hoe we met vreemdelingen omgingen vroeger en nu. Maar nog interessanter is haar manier om via het unheimliche, vreemde, onbewuste in jezelf te komen tot een grond voor een nieuw soort universalisme dat niet louter rationeel is en ook niet religieus. Ik ervaar het ook als een ode aan het leven, aan kunst en aan denken. Heel erg blij dat ik dit boek gelezen heb, al heeft het wel wat moeite gekost. Toen ik de Franse versie bijna uit had ben ik opnieuw begonnen in de Nederlandse vertaling omdat ik niet alles begrepen had. Deze lange reis was meer dan de moeite waard!
April 23, 2021
I think it was one of the most challenging books to go through. Though, I'm not sure whether the domain (philosophy) is to blame. I believe that it's more a matter of translation (and Kristeva's writing style too). The first ~70 pages were fascinating and thought-provoking, but the rest quite arduous. Sometimes I was reading through the whole page multiple times and couldn't understand the argument that is being conveyed there.
July 28, 2022
A very good and interesting book about the foreign and being a foreigner. An analysis of what the foreign means for us and our society and culture.
The book begins from antiquity to the present day and attempts to show how foreignness and being foreign has developed over the centuries.
The book is challenging and not always easy to read, so not for everyone. But if you find the subject interesting, you can learn a lot.
The book begins from antiquity to the present day and attempts to show how foreignness and being foreign has developed over the centuries.
The book is challenging and not always easy to read, so not for everyone. But if you find the subject interesting, you can learn a lot.
May 4, 2021
It begins with an overly romantic idealism and ends, rather abruptly I feel, in Freud. Between the two is a fascinating historical survey on the idea of the foreigner.
July 18, 2024
An odd work attempting to tackle the topic of xenophobia through literary interpretation and conventional psychoanalytic insights, seemingly without strong conclusions or much to say in the end.
February 8, 2022
Esmesed 70 lehekülge on lihtsalt suurepärane filosoofia, edasi aga....nojah.
May 8, 2012
A book that is at once highly acute and powerful in places and one that is myopic and lacking for scope and detail in other sections, but altogether, a very necessary book: Kristeva examines what it means to be a "stranger" or alien in another land, and as someone who came to Paris from her native Bulgaria as a graduate student, as someone who is both a linguist and a psychoanalyst (and maintains an active clinical practice), Kristeva is in a great place in so many ways to consider the plight of the stranger in a strange land.
The opening section "Toccata and Fugue for the Foreigner" is widely anthologized and a great piece of writing that can stand on its own while the chapter on Paul and Augustine is also very good. Where Kristeva is less skilled is when she speaks of our contemporary times (or, at least, the times a few decades ago when the book was written): she seems to embark from her personal journey with the view her own experience can well stand in for the experience of any and every foreigner. Also, she tilts her earlier arguements towards promoting a European Union-like unity of all nations and peoples which may sound nice in a Disney sort of way on the surface but is ungainly in the scope of this book. Even if you side 100% with her on her politics, Kristeva interjects them in a rather unbecoming manner in this volume. She simply toys with ideas that deserve far more development than she's willing or able to provide them—if they are to make sense and be winning arguments.
That said, Kristeva often shines—as in the first section or her consideration of Rabelais and the Renaissance. She is able to pin down a lot of diverse places in history where elements came together in a manner to promote a wider view of who and what is "foreign" and who and what is domestic and also does a good job explaining the French mindset of national polity and expansion. There are though places where this book never measures up to the greatness you'd expect from Kristeva on this topic. Like all her works, if your French is up for it, read it in the original French.
The opening section "Toccata and Fugue for the Foreigner" is widely anthologized and a great piece of writing that can stand on its own while the chapter on Paul and Augustine is also very good. Where Kristeva is less skilled is when she speaks of our contemporary times (or, at least, the times a few decades ago when the book was written): she seems to embark from her personal journey with the view her own experience can well stand in for the experience of any and every foreigner. Also, she tilts her earlier arguements towards promoting a European Union-like unity of all nations and peoples which may sound nice in a Disney sort of way on the surface but is ungainly in the scope of this book. Even if you side 100% with her on her politics, Kristeva interjects them in a rather unbecoming manner in this volume. She simply toys with ideas that deserve far more development than she's willing or able to provide them—if they are to make sense and be winning arguments.
That said, Kristeva often shines—as in the first section or her consideration of Rabelais and the Renaissance. She is able to pin down a lot of diverse places in history where elements came together in a manner to promote a wider view of who and what is "foreign" and who and what is domestic and also does a good job explaining the French mindset of national polity and expansion. There are though places where this book never measures up to the greatness you'd expect from Kristeva on this topic. Like all her works, if your French is up for it, read it in the original French.
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February 10, 2016Forse ha ragione Marcel Proust quando afferma che l’opera letteraria non è altro che uno strumento ottico che consente al lettore di focalizzare e leggere meglio la realtà. Libri che ti trovi davanti più o meno per caso nei quali cerchi di trovare qualche risposta alle tue domande..
I morti di Parigi, come quelli di Ankara, di Beirut, di Aleppo, deflagrano ancora in me e sento il bisogno di dare forma all’angoscia e alla pena. Inizio a leggere i giornali, a scrivere e a cancellare quel che ho scritto, che avverto irrimediabilmente banale e inadeguato rispetto a quello che stiamo vivendo.
Riprendo in mano Stranieri a noi stessi, un classico della letteratura interculturale, ripubblicato ad oltre 25 anni di distanza da Donzelli con una bella introduzione dell’autrice, nel quale Julia Kristeva interroga il significato di straniero nella cultura occidentale.
Tema indubbiamente impervio da esplorare, che ci mette di fronte a pulsioni ancestrali, alla diffidenza e alla paura di fronte all’Altro. Che non riguarda naturalmente solo identità geografiche e culturali diverse, ma anche la nostra irriducibile estraneità a noi stessi. Non solo chi vive da straniero in un altro Paese ma anche chi è straniero tra i suoi simili e lo straniero che abita in noi, senza il cui riconoscimento <>.
Julia Kristeva, bulgara trapiantata in Francia, americana d’adozione, che si definisce oggi “cittadina europea”, semiologa, psicanalista, filosofa, scrittrice (I Samurai, Sole nero, L’avvenire di una rivolta) cerca di restituirne la profondità, la complessità, la molteplicità dei piani di riflessione, partendo ....
(http://www.annapuleo.com/la-difficolt...)
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I morti di Parigi, come quelli di Ankara, di Beirut, di Aleppo, deflagrano ancora in me e sento il bisogno di dare forma all’angoscia e alla pena. Inizio a leggere i giornali, a scrivere e a cancellare quel che ho scritto, che avverto irrimediabilmente banale e inadeguato rispetto a quello che stiamo vivendo.
Riprendo in mano Stranieri a noi stessi, un classico della letteratura interculturale, ripubblicato ad oltre 25 anni di distanza da Donzelli con una bella introduzione dell’autrice, nel quale Julia Kristeva interroga il significato di straniero nella cultura occidentale.
Tema indubbiamente impervio da esplorare, che ci mette di fronte a pulsioni ancestrali, alla diffidenza e alla paura di fronte all’Altro. Che non riguarda naturalmente solo identità geografiche e culturali diverse, ma anche la nostra irriducibile estraneità a noi stessi. Non solo chi vive da straniero in un altro Paese ma anche chi è straniero tra i suoi simili e lo straniero che abita in noi, senza il cui riconoscimento <>.
Julia Kristeva, bulgara trapiantata in Francia, americana d’adozione, che si definisce oggi “cittadina europea”, semiologa, psicanalista, filosofa, scrittrice (I Samurai, Sole nero, L’avvenire di una rivolta) cerca di restituirne la profondità, la complessità, la molteplicità dei piani di riflessione, partendo ....
(http://www.annapuleo.com/la-difficolt...)
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February 24, 2016
Kristeva's meditation on the foreigner as a double of our own inner self isn't as lively and precise as some of her best work, but it's still very perceptive and worth a read. The notion that the foreigner returns to us as a dark reflection of our inner being, and that we can only love or hate them to the degree that we accept or reject ourselves, is supported by many examples from antiquity to the modern era (most especially, and obviously, Camus and Sartre). There's a final section, seemingly as relevant today as it was when she wrote the book almost 30 years ago, about the new wave of migrants to France, and concerns about assimilation, that she incorporates into her thesis. This all gets a bit abstract, and the language isn't as commanding as "Powers of Horror", largely thanks to a lot more psychoanalytical notions and jargon, but when she comes closest to the subject, you're still seeing an amazing mind at work.
March 10, 2008
College professor study on what it means to be a stranger... Philosophically and in mythology and literature.
Did not like the introduction at all... Have paused, not sure I will resume.
Did not like the introduction at all... Have paused, not sure I will resume.
October 4, 2020
Brugt som brugbar kilde ifb. med mit speciale om Young Adult-litteratur (2017)
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November 8, 2017Another, even less abashed bourgeois philosopher. I am deeply impressed with Kristeva's historical knowledge and research and her depiction of so many ancient and medieval social classes. Conflating them all into "The Foreigner," though, is precisely not what we should be doing. History in our moment must need be a barricade.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews