"both an excellent introduction and a thoroughgoing analysis of Kristeva's writing." ―Signs
"The book is a brilliant combination of a recuperative and a critical reading of Kristeva's work." ―Changes: An International Journal of Psychology & Psychotherapy
"a thorough, detailed, and critical analysis of the writings of Julia Kristeva." ―Elizabeth Grosz
"the most involved and engaging study of Julia Kristeva's work to date . . ." ―The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory
The complex and provocative theories of the French philosopher and psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva are clearly and thoroughly explicated by Kelly Oliver. Reading Kristeva is the first sustained feminist analysis of Kristeva's writings taken as a whole. Oliver's readings of Kristeva indicate ways in which controversial concepts such as the semiotic, abjection, the maternal function, herethics, and the imaginary father can be useful for feminist theory. By reconciling the body with the symbolic, Kristeva attemps to unravel the double-bind between static identity, on the one hand, and the complete loss of identity, or delirium, on the other. Kristeva's conceptions of identity and difference provide a fruitful approach to rethinking debated issues in feminist ethical, political, and psychoanalytic theory.
KELLY OLIVER is. Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. Her articles have appeared in Social Theory and Practice, Hypatia, Radical Philosophy, and Diacritics. She is coeditor (with Dale Bauer) of a special issue of Hypatia on philosophy and language.
