The Kristeva Reader

by Julia Kristeva, Toril Moi (Editor)

An easily accessible introduction to Kristeva's work in English. The essays have been selected as representative of the three main areas of Kristeva's writing--semiotics, psychoanalysis, and political theory--and are each prefaced by a clear, instructive introduction. For beginners or those familiar with Kristeva's work this is a good complement to The Portable Kristeva with a convenient selection of articles from Kristeva's earlier work some of which are otherwise hard to come by.

Genres: Philosophy, Feminism, Nonfiction, Theory, Psychoanalysis, Psychology, Essays

328 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Julia 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).

Reviews

[Andrew]

As with my previous experiences of reading Kristeva, she really runs the gamut from awful psychoanalytic posturing to just, the highest of heights of critical thought. Like the wow shit. Some of the semiotic essays, reminiscent of Barthes, are real mind-blowers, her perspective on America, while not necessarily accurate, is definitely the most articulate viewpoint from a Big Name European Intellectual that I've encountered, and her brief piece on dissidence is a stunner too. But then there's just so much godawful Lacanian shit. So read the highlights, as fast as you can, but feel free to ignore the rest.

[Michael A. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought the semiotic/semanalysis stuff was going to be harder than the psychoanalysis stuff. It's not. Don't expect to get much out of Kristeva if you aren't very comfortable with Freudian-Lacanian psychoanalysis, as she delineates where Lacanian psychoanalysis doesn't go and goes there (which makes the reading very difficult going). Her politics seem suspect, but really nothing worse than maybe a moderate, multiculturalist liberalism - her inability to say Fascism without immediately conjoining it with "Stalinism" is annoying, but like swatting away a fly: it is very minor, slightly disappointing.

Also, nothing in the reader at all about the abject. In a way, this is an interesting move. One is exposed to Kristeva's ideas that go beyond the abject, which is probably what most people know her for. A lot of her thinking doesn't even really deal with that explicitly (especially pre-1980).

I'm not really sure what her relation to Marx is or what use she has for him except to compare him with Freud - which is fine, but it's almost like an asymmetrical "dialectical" relationship: for her Freud could exist without Marx just fine.

Using semiotics to analyze Lacanian psychoanalysis (because of signifier/signified) and poetic language more generally was very good. Mostly I was just submersing myself in the jargon of psychoanalysis with this - she will be someone I will have to come back to when I learn more.

[Blaze-Pascal · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was released in the 80's I believe. It is an english translation of many of Kristeva's most important and influential texts. Although definitely dense, in the sense that it is Kristeva's reflections on mostly Lacanian understandings of psychoanalytic theory, (everyone needs to make their own Lacan I sense), it has a lot of the juicy backbones of Lacan.

I think to read it directly through, is an arduous task. Yet, these collections of essays, which are pulled from several of her books and articles she has published, are really the spine of her thought and help to explain her understandings of: language, subjectivity, feminism, abjection, love and the political.

Each essay in itself, is something which could offer a seminal reading. And in the future, I will probably refer to it, when I am interested in seeing how Kristeva's reflections may help illuminate my own understanding of something.

Kristeva is awesome. That is all.

[Maddy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not as familiar with Kristeva's earlier linguistic writings or her political work so it is interesting to see how basic concerns transcend the many disciplines she engages in. It is also strange that there is nothing from Powers of Horror - though I think this was published before? Or at least pre Barbara Creed.

[Virginia · Rating 5 out of 5]

To be very clear, I read this for a lot longer than I listed myself as having read it for, and I did not read the most heavily psychoanalytic essays (about 50 pages of the book), or very thoroughly read the heavily psychoanalytic passages in what I did read. But I can say that what I did read seemed quite good, and I look forward to returning to Kristeva after reading Freud and Lacan to get a more thorough grasp of her complexities and innovations in psychoanalysis.

[ella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestly I did skip the first half about semiotics because I just really dont care. I waited and waited for an essay on abjection and it never came! Felt betrayed, but I did like the essay on America, which felt pretty relavant to right now in some ways but shes just so painfully French. Which is crazy, because shes Bulgarian. Whatever.

[Sofia Pi · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me a day and a year to finish this book. I started it while waiting in Copenhagen airport a whole night, read more than half and after that I came back again to that at different times throughout the year reading and rereading it. Linguistics and semiotics make new sense to me after ten years from graduating university. The book is intriguing and achieves its goal to make you want to read more of Kristeva's work. Although I know nothing of psychoanalysis, I found the sections undoubtedly informative but sometimes difficult to grasp immediately. Next goal: About Chinese women by Julia Kristeva

[Tynan Brooks]

Appreciated some essays, could have left others; I may be too much of a humanist to fully go in for this sort of critical theory. Despite this, the psychoanalytic examinations of womanhood/feminism in some essays inspired a lot of thought.

[Theryn Fleming]

The Kristeva Reader is a comprehensive collection of Julia Kristeva's work, containing essays spanning her career up to 1986. Editor Toril Moi has provided a brief introduction to each piece that explains the key concepts. Additionally, the introduction provides an overview of Kristeva's work, focusing in particular on issues not discussed elsewhere in the reader. The book is arranged in two parts: in Part I, the focus is Linguistics, Semiotics, Textuality; and in Part II, Women, Psychoanalysis, Politics. While Moi states that the reader is for beginners as well as those familiar with Kristeva's work, she does assume readers have a familiarity with Lacan and Derrida.

[Litro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Impenetrable selections from the genesis essentialist feminist theory. Readers would do well to familiarize themselves with semiotics before tackling these sections of the book.

[Adrian Colesberry · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoy difficult reading projects and this one got the best of me. In the main, I found it inscrutable, like reading an inside argument about an inside argument.