Julia Kristeva

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Julia Kristeva

• Major Concepts and Examples

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Questions

• How is Kristeva related to the theories weve
  discussed so far? (e.g. de Saussure, Derrida,
  Freud and Lacan)
• What does she add to Lacan?
• Why is the unconscious structured like language
  for Lacan? How is the semiotic related to the
  unconscious?

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Major Concepts

• 1. Her attempt to bring the body back into
  discourses in the human sciences
• 2. Her focus on the significance of the maternal
  and preoedipal in the constitution of
  subjectivity
• 3. Her revision of contemporary linguistics
  which focused on the communicative function of
  language (e.g. generative grammar, speech acts).
  ? genotext
• (Her notion of abjection as an explanation for
  oppression and discrimination. source)

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Body and the semiotic

• The semiotic -- the bodily drive as it is
  discharged in signification. The semiotic is
  associated with the rhythms, tones, and movement
  of signifying practices. As the discharge of
  drives, it is also associated with the maternal
  body, the first source of rhythms, tones, and
  movements for every human being since we all have
  resided in that body.

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The semiotic disposition

• The emergence of the semiotic in the symbolic, or
  the genotext in the phenotext.
• E.g. rhythm, ambiguity and over-symbolicity, the
  switches and multiplicity of locutionary
  position.

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The Symbolic the Semiotic

• element of signification is associated with the
  grammar and structure of signification. The
  symbolic element is what makes reference
  possible.
• Without the symbolic, all signification would be
  babble or delirium. But, without the semiotic,
  all signification would be empty and have no
  importance for our lives. Ultimately,
  signification requires both the semiotic and
  symbolic there is no signification without some
  combination of both.

source
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The maternal chora

• The space of the drives

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• Georgia O'Keeffe
• Black Iris

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Pollock, Jackson Blue Poles Number 11, 1952
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Pollock, Jackson Blue Poles Number 11, 1952
Context existentialism ("existence precedes
essence") alone in the void (alienation) the
Cold War post-Hiroshima the Soviet Union gets
the bomb in 1949 the 50's beat generation
(pushing to the edge of one's consciousness.)
Jungian analysis (the collective unconscious
the archetype mythic structures embedded in
everyone's unconscious). Inspired by jazz
improvisation listened to records by Charlie
Parker while he painted. Also influenced by
Native American sand painting and the idea that
painting could be ritualistic, a rites of
passage. (source http//www.csulb.edu/karenk/20
thcwebsite/439mid/ah439mid-Info.00011.html )