Editing Julia Kristeva (section)

==Work==
After joining the '[[Tel Quel]] group' founded by Sollers, Kristeva focused on the politics of language and became an active member of the group. She trained in psychoanalysis, and earned her degree in 1979. In some ways, her work can be seen as trying to adapt a [[psychoanalytic]] approach to the [[poststructuralist]] criticism. For example, her view of the [[Subject (philosophy)|subject]], and its construction, shares similarities with [[Sigmund Freud]] and [[Jacques Lacan]]. However, Kristeva rejects any understanding of the subject in a structuralist sense; instead, she favors a subject always "[[Process philosophy|in process]]" or "on trial".<ref>{{cite book|last=McAfee|first=Noêlle|title=Julia Kristeva|year=2004|publisher=Routledge|location=London|isbn=0-203-63434-9|page=38|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1F4oOL1PACMC&q=sujet+en+proces+on+trial&pg=PA38}}</ref> In this way, she contributes to the poststructuralist critique of essentialized structures, whilst preserving the teachings of psychoanalysis. She travelled to China in the 1970s and later wrote ''About Chinese Women'' (1977).<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://ms.cc.sunysb.edu/~hvolat/kristeva/krist01.htm |title=State University of New York at Stony Brook |access-date=2004-11-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041120233104/http://ms.cc.sunysb.edu/~hvolat/kristeva/krist01.htm |archive-date=2004-11-20 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/video/julia-kristeva-on-genie-feminine-and-art |title=Tate Britain Online Event: Julia Kristeva |access-date=2014-07-31 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180403002323/http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/video/julia-kristeva-on-genie-feminine-and-art |archive-date=2018-04-03 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.pileface.com/sollers/article.php3?id_article=49|title=Who's who in Les Samouraïs - Philippe Sollers/Pileface|website=www.pileface.com|access-date=2006-02-20|archive-date=2018-12-15|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181215224930/http://www.pileface.com/sollers/article.php3?id_article=49|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.lacan.com/perfume/kristeva.htm|title=Julia Kristeva/Josefina Ayerza/Flash Art|website=www.lacan.com|access-date=2020-07-14|archive-date=2017-07-27|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170727183054/http://www.lacan.com/perfume/kristeva.htm|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.theguardian.com/education/2006/mar/14/highereducation.research1|title=The ideas interview: Julia Kristeva|date=March 14, 2006|website=the Guardian}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.kristeva.fr/|title=Julia Kristeva - site officiel|website=www.kristeva.fr|access-date=2009-08-06|archive-date=2011-07-21|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110721001651/http://www.kristeva.fr/|url-status=live}}</ref>

===The "semiotic" and the "symbolic"===<!--Linked from infobox above-->
One of Kristeva's most important contributions is that signification is composed of two elements, the symbolic and the ''semiotic'', the latter being distinct from the discipline of [[semiotics]] founded by [[Ferdinand de Saussure]]. As explained by Augustine Perumalil, Kristeva's "semiotic is closely related to the infantile [[pre-Oedipal]] referred to in the works of Freud, [[Otto Rank]], [[Melanie Klein]], British [[Object Relation]] psychoanalysis, and Lacan's pre-[[mirror stage]]. It is an emotional field, tied to the [[instincts]], which dwells in the fissures and [[prosody (linguistics)|prosody]] of language rather than in the [[Denotation (Semiotics)|denotative meanings]] of words."<ref>{{cite book|last=Perumalil|first=Augustine|title=The History of Women in Philosophy|page=344}}</ref> Furthermore, according to Birgit Schippers, the semiotic is a realm associated with the musical, the poetic, the rhythmic, and that which lacks structure and meaning. It is closely tied to the "feminine", and represents the undifferentiated state of the pre-Mirror Stage infant.<ref>{{cite book|last=Schippers|first=Birgit|title=Julia Kristeva and Feminist Thought|date=2011}}</ref>

Upon entering the Mirror Stage, the child learns to distinguish between self and other, and enters the realm of shared cultural meaning, known as [[The Symbolic|the symbolic]]. In ''Desire in Language'' (1980), Kristeva describes the symbolic as the space in which the development of language allows the child to become a "speaking subject," and to develop a sense of identity separate from the mother. This process of separation is known as abjection, whereby the child must reject and move away from the mother in order to enter into the world of language, culture, meaning, and the social. This realm of language is called the symbolic and is contrasted with the semiotic in that it is associated with the masculine, the law, and structure. Kristeva departs from Lacan in the idea that even after entering the symbolic, the subject continues to oscillate between the semiotic and the symbolic. Therefore, rather than arriving at a fixed identity, the subject is permanently "in process". Because female children continue to identify to some degree with the mother figure, they are especially likely to retain a close connection to the semiotic. This continued identification with the mother may result in what Kristeva refers to in ''[[Black Sun (Kristeva book)|Black Sun]]'' (1989) as [[melancholia]] ([[Major depressive disorder|depression]]), given that female children simultaneously reject and identify with the mother figure.

It has also been suggested (e.g., Creed, 1993) that the degradation of women and women's bodies in popular culture (and particularly, for example, in [[slasher film]]s) emerges because of the threat to identity that the mother's body poses: it is a reminder of time spent in the undifferentiated state of the semiotic, where one has no concept of self or identity. After abjecting the mother, subjects retain an [[Unconscious mind|unconscious]] fascination with the semiotic, desiring to reunite with the mother, while at the same time fearing the loss of identity that accompanies it. [[Misogyny in horror films|Slasher films]] thus provide a way for audience members to safely reenact the process of abjection by vicariously expelling and destroying the mother figure.

Kristeva is also known for her adoption of [[Plato]]’s idea of the ''[[Khôra|chora]]'', meaning "a nourishing maternal space" (Schippers, 2011). Kristeva's idea of the ''chora'' has been interpreted in several ways: as a reference to the uterus, as a metaphor for the relationship between the mother and child, and as the temporal period preceding the Mirror Stage. In her essay ''Motherhood According to [[Giovanni Bellini]]'' from ''Desire in Language'' (1980), Kristeva refers to the ''chora'' as a "non-expressive totality formed by drives and their stases in a motility that is as full of movement as it is regulated." She goes on to suggest that it is the mother's body that mediates between the ''chora'' and the symbolic realm: the mother has access to culture and meaning, yet also forms a totalizing bond with the child.

Kristeva is also noted for her work on the concept of [[intertextuality]].

===Anthropology and psychology===<!--This is a great example of how 'Theory' can be explained clearly, and with reference to the theoreticians' work-->
Kristeva argues that [[anthropology]] and [[psychology]], or the connection between the social and the subject, do not represent each other, but rather follow the same logic: the survival of the group and the subject. Furthermore, in her analysis of [[Oedipus]], she claims that the speaking subject cannot exist on his/her own, but that he/she "stands on the fragile threshold as if stranded on account of an impossible demarcation" (''[[Powers of Horror]]'', p.&nbsp;85).
[[File:Julia-Kristeva-Island-Of-Re-2005.jpg|thumb|Julia Kristeva in 2005]]
In her comparison between the two disciplines, Kristeva claims that the way in which an individual excludes the abject mother as a means of forming an identity, is the same way in which societies are constructed. On a broader scale, cultures exclude the maternal and the feminine, and by this come into being.{{clarify|date=April 2012}}