Kristeva, Julia

Psychoanalytic theorist, linguistic scholar, and philosopher, Julia Kristeva theorizes relations among psychic desire, the body, sexuality, and culture. She has contributed extensively not only to philosophy, linguistics, and psychoanalytic theory but also to literary and cultural theory as well as feminist theory. Her publications explore topics such as the relationship of semiotics and subjectivity (Revolution of Poetic Language, 1974), depression and melancholy (Black Sun, 1987), maternal experience and abjection (Powers of Horror, 1980), national identity and territorial space (Strangers to Ourselves, 1989), literature and sensation (Time and Sense, 1994), and the practice of psychoanalysis (New Maladies of the Soul, 1993).

Kristeva was born in 1941 in Bulgaria. In the mid-1960s at the age of 25, she was granted a doctoral research fellowship that enabled her to ...