The Sense and Non-Sense of Revolt: The Powers and Limits of Psychoanalysis

by Julia Kristeva

Overview

Freud and psychoanalysis taught us that rebellion is what guarantees our independence and our creative abilities. But in the contemporary "entertainment" culture, is rebellion still a viable option? Is it still possible to build and embrace a counterculture? For whom—and against what?

Julia Kristeva illustrates the advances and impasses of rebel culture through the experiences of three twentieth-century writers: the existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre, the surrealist Louis Aragon, and the theorist Roland Barthes. These figures, according to Kristeva, took part in a revolution against accepted notions of identity—of one’s relation to others. She places their accomplishments in the context of other revolutionary movements in art, literature, and politics, also offering an illuminating discussion of Freud’s groundbreaking work on rebellion.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231216746
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	10/01/2024
Series:	European Perspectives: A Series in Social Thought and Cultural Criticism
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Julia Kristeva is professor emerita of linguistics at the Université de Paris VII. A renowned psychoanalyst, philosopher, and linguist, she has written dozens of books spanning semiotics, political theory, literary criticism, gender and sex, and cultural critique, as well as several novels and autobiographical works, published in English translation by Columbia University Press. Kristeva was the inaugural recipient of the Holberg International Memorial Prize in 2004 “for innovative explorations of questions on the intersection of language, culture, and literature.”

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. What Revolt Today?
2. The Sacred and Revolt: Various Logics
3. The Metamorphoses of "Language'' in the Freudian Discovery (Freudian Models of Language)
4. Oedipus Again; or, Phallic Monism
5. On the Extraneousness of the Phallus; or, the Feminine Between Illusion and Disillusion
6. Aragon, Defiance, and Deception: A Precursor?
7. Sartre; or, "We Are Right to Revolt''
8. Roland Barthes and Writing as Demystification

Editorial Reviews

A fascinating and provocative diagnosis.

The Comparatist

A remarkably lucid, eloquent, lethal critique of the linguistification of French psychoanalysis.

History of the Human Sciences

Kristeva is a figure of far-reaching eloquence.

Washington Post

Kristeva dazzles, seduces, and intellectually accelerates. . . she mobilises psychoanalysis to investigate contemporary responses. . . that destabilise and problematise complacent, somanmbulistic identity. That is, placing revolt and its necessity at the epicentre of our lives.

Paul Wessels

Kristeva is a figure of far-reaching eloquence.

Denis Donaghue

Kristeva, a psychoanalyst and prolific French post-structuralist writer (Possessions, LJ 2/1/98), presents a new academic treatise on revolt. Beginning with a lengthy psycholinguistic analysis of revolt, she focuses on three examples of rebellion in the lives and works of Louis Aragon, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Roland Barthes. As the title implies, this is a dense work, drawing from a variety of humanistic traditions: psychoanalysis, linguistics, literature, and philosophy, among others. As with most French post-structuralist writers, Kristeva presupposes the reader's working knowledge of Jacques Lacan, Ferdinand de Saussure, Barthes, and others. Her style is really quite blinkered and maddening for those who graduated either before or after these writers came into vogue, as well as those for whom the luster of postmodernism has simply worn off. Those in the opposite camp, however, will eagerly devour this translation. For anyone else who can wade through the tedious argumentation to the author's conclusions, this is also a rewarding read. Recommended only for academic libraries.--David Valencia, King Cty. Lib. Syst., Federal Way, Washington Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\

Library Journal

Kristeva is a figure of far-reaching eloquence.

— Denis Donaghue

Washington Post