Major Concepts and Examples Julia Kristeva Major Concepts and Examples

Questions How is Kristeva related to the theories we’ve 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?

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)

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.

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.

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

The maternal: chora The space of the drives;

Georgia O'Keeffe Black Iris

Pollock, Jackson Blue Poles: Number 11, 1952

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/20thcwebsite/439mid/ah439mid-Info.00011.html )