Julia K.

[Jon Ford]

Nothing wrong with being an old hippie-- I am in no way ageist, since I 
could be called an old hippie myself. I have just begun to read Kristeva, 
and I think her focus on emotion and revolt (not revolt in a specific 
ideological dimension, but more as a total perspective on life, revolt as 
renewal), as well as her feminist perspective that includes motherhood could 
be classified as rather "old hippie." She is also decidedly anti-Freudian-- 
I never met a hippie yet who liked Freud. I would say she's worth reading 
more than two pages before dismissing her. I intend to read more.

Jon



>From: "Wayne Johnson" <cadaobh@shentel.net>
>Reply-To: austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net
>To: <austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net>
>Subject: Re: Re:Julia K.
>Date: Thu, 20 May 2004 08:40:08 -0400
>
>So, Jon, are you using the phrase "old hippie" in a pejorative 
sense?
>
>Some people, who were once "young hippies", had some rather 
interesting experiences and made some rather intriguing contributions to our 
culture, some good, some bad.  Many actually contributed a great deal to 
visual and poetic arts, music, intellectual culture and, egad, computer 
programming.
>
>Alas, I guess you mean aging erases all in America, leaving all 
"good" things in the hands of.....others.
>
>wj
>
>btw.  Have you actually read anything Kristeva has written?
>   ----- Original Message -----
>   From: Jon Ford
>   To: austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net
>   Sent: Wednesday, May 19, 2004 6:24 PM
>   Subject: Re:Julia K.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>   Michael-- sorry you didn't get past page two, but here is an 
interview with Julia which might set you right. She sounds like an old 
hippie to me!
>
>   JON
>
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>
>
>          Julia Kristeva is a world famous semiotician, feminist 
theorist, psychoanalyst and at the same time an interesting creative writer. 
She was born in Bulgaria in 1941, but came to Paris in 1965 where she became 
immersed in Parisian intellectual life. Her acclaimed novel "Les 
Samouïs" (1990) analyzes the Parisian intellectual avant-garde to which 
she has belonged ever since. And though psychoanalysis remains one of the 
major orienting and formative
>
>
>         An Interview with Julia Kristeva
>
>         by Nina Zivancevici
>
>         Parisian intellectual avant-garde to which she has belonged 
ever since. And though psychoanalysis remains one of the major orienting and 
formative dimensions of her work, especially as regards her reflections upon 
the nature of the feminine, she has also continued her research on the 
nature of language and examined the processes leading to the emergence of 
the work of art. As the theorist John Lechte points out, " because of 
the intimate link between art and the formation of subjectivity, Kristeva 
has always found art to be a particularly fruitful basis for analysis. 
" Since the 1960s, she has
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>         been a leading force in the critique of representation and her 
most recent book is a critical study of Colette's work and life, that is to 
say, one of the numerous projects that she has been energetically working 
on.
>
>         Q: When did you start getting interested in the notion of the 
"feminine"? Was it with the exploration of the notion of ÒchoraÓor 
the female voice in linguistics and semiology? Or rather, from that point on 
how have you arrived at the so-called feminist studies and writing 
understood in terms of their sociological and/or aesthetic significance?
>
>         J.Kristeva: It is very difficult to trace back my interest in 
the "feminine". I suppose that at the very moment in which I 
started asking questions about myself the question of the ÒfeminineÓ had 
already been formulated in my mind, so one could say perhaps it started in 
the period of my adolescence when I became interested in literature which 
necessarily asks questions about the sexual differences. But, you are right, 
in my theoretical work, this question is raised in a more succinct manner, 
perhaps also more discreet one, but which was nevertheless very intense
>
>         It must be said that this question is related to the notion of 
"chora" which directs us back to the archaic state of language . 
This state is known to a child who is in a state of osmosis with his/her 
mother during which language manifests itself as co-lalia , a melodic 
alliteration that precedes the introduction of signs within a syntactic 
order. The period during which I started developing this notion was that of 
the writing of my Ph.D on the avant-garde of the 19th century (Mallarmè and 
Lautreeamont) and I had understood how much of that, what we call 
hermiticism in literature, is connected to the rehabilitation, more or less 
conscious, of that archaic language. By the way, I was also at that time 
undergoing an analysis myself, and so became convinced that what we have 
discussed was really true.
>
>         Q: Is it difficult to "abandon" or at least to set 
aside one's mother tongue and write in another language ?
>
>         Kristeva: No, I haven't had the impression that I had abandoned 
my mother tongue by coming to France because I had learnt French when I was 
four or five and had been bilingual. It is true though that the transition 
from one mother tongue to the other is a real matricide particularly when 
one ends up expressing himself only in this second language and oneÕs 
rapport to the first one remains extremely limited, which is my case, but it 
didnÕt happen with me in that era (of coming to France). It was quite a 
gradual change.
>
>         Q: Given the fact that you have written a lot about the 
importance of the so-called "sick" states of mind, could you tell 
us whether they are related in any way to Art ? Would you see Art as the 
means of healing them or do you see it as an independent entity? Is Art a 
sort of "love" for you (the way Freud would have it) and a sort of 
human cure?
>
>         Kristeva: It has always shocked commentators when I affirm my 
agreement with the ancient Greeks who viewed art as catharsis or 
purification and I would add that it is a sort of sublimation for the 
"borderline" states, in the broadest sense of the term, that is, 
it comprises those characterized by fragility. If we analyze contemporary 
art, we get the impression that two types of fragility are examined by 
contemporary artists. On one hand, we have perversion, that is, all sorts of 
sexual transgressions. To this effect, it is enough to just browse through 
contemporary books or simply look at the "culture" pages of 
"Libèration" which review exhibitions to see that the form and the 
content of the experience serve as means of overcoming these states. They 
testify to the existence of these states, as well as that of a certain 
desire to make them public, or even share them with others, that is, to take 
them out of their closet which is! a soothing action after all despite its 
commercial aspect since one turns a "shameful thing" into 
something positive. So you see, here we have something that transcends the 
notion of "cure" and is at times something gratifying.
>
>         Q: Does contemporary art have to do with Voyeurism, as is the 
case with the most recent literature nowadays which purports to describe the 
most intimate states of the body and the soul ?
>
>         Kristeva: Absolutely! This is ever the case with literature and 
when it does not try to treat perversion, it is deals with psychotic states, 
that is, the states of identity loss, the loss of language, the borderline 
cases which cohabit and coexist with delirium and violence, but all of this 
does not have to bear the imprint of something negative. Some think that 
these works are scandal-oriented, others think that they rejoice in ugliness 
, yes, certainly there are elements of such orientations in them, but, on 
the other hand, the existence of these works is also a research -- often in 
a very specific manner -- on the anticipation of difficulty of living. And 
Art can play an important role here since it can contribute to a certain 
creative assumption of such a difficulty. Nevertheless, I personally remain 
a bit skeptical of a certain drift or tendency of contemporary art to 
content itself with such, so I believe, feeble appropri! ations of these 
traumatic states. We remain here at the level of the statement of the 
clinical cases with an almost documentary style photography of these cases 
wherein the investment and the effort made in the exploration of new forms 
or new thoughts remains less visible. So, it is something regrettable which 
every so often leaves me with the impression that when I visit museums or 
read certain art books, I am looking into psychoanalytic or even psychiatric 
archives. But, perhaps this is an indispensable experience.
>
>         Q: But you haven't always felt this way- we remember the time 
when you wrote about BelliniÉ
>
>         Kristeva: That's right, I haven't always felt this way -- this 
is a very particular moment in art history which deepened and probed a 
certain aspect of a widespread existential malaise and discontent while 
neglecting the possibility of its overcoming.
>
>         Q: Well, along this line, you wrote in "Tales of 
Love" that "the psychoanalytic couch is the only place where the 
social contract authorizes explicitly psychoanalytic investigation, but 
"leaves Love out of it." However, we find this type of 
investigation in literature and art as well. You have recently analyzed the 
"investigation" of the writer Colette whose work deals extensively 
with love and emotions. Why Colette ?
>
>         Kristeva: Why Colette? Because in my trilogy on the feminine 
genius I tried to analyze the works of two dramatic women who represent the 
tragic aspect of our (20th) century, Hanna Arendt's on 
"Totalitarianism" and Melanie Klein's on psychosis, especially 
children's psychosis, and it seemed to me important (not only to me 
personally but also for the sake of objectivity) to pay homage to the other 
aspect of our civilization which is notably our century's source of joy, 
that is, the feminist liberation and "joie de vivre". And Colette 
excels in that appropriation of the national language in which she delights 
and leads to paroxysms of beauty that trace a path which goes beyond the 
scandal of a woman who asserts her liberty and authority. So, for me, she 
has become indispensable.
>
>         Q: In your novel "Les Samoura.s" you have shown a 
great literary talent and a certain sense of humor which is certainly 
lacking in your analytic work. Why have you stopped your literary 
production, that is to say, writing of novels ?
>
>         Kristeva: Oh, I haven't stopped it for after "Les 
Samoura.s" I wrote "The old man the wolves," then 
"Possesions," and now I am going to write yet another thriller 
which will be called, as it seems now, "Our Byzantium". IÕd like 
to continue writing in this polar style and with a certain political 
motivation. It will be concerned with the possibility -- or the 
impossibility -- of unifying Eastern Europe with Western Europe. It will 
deal with the Crusades and in it the modern characters would reveal their 
ancestors who had been in the Crusades, a catastrophic enterprise which 
eventually failed as you know, but which has been in its essence an attempt 
at unifying Europe, an unhappy attempt though. So, I am going to ask a 
question about the tragedy of this Europe which is now divided, and also 
this would be a way for me to visit my orthodox origins where I'd also 
attempt to revive some of my childhood souvenirs.
>
>         Q: That's right, the area of Eastern or Central Europe really 
belongs to "Byzantium".
>
>         Kristeva: Yes, we are Byzantium, that is, the Balkans, and I am 
very proud of the fact that I come from that region. And that's something 
which is unknown to the West. While it is true that what has survived of 
Byzantium is in a state of cultural decadence and terrible economic poverty 
with nothing in it that could seduce the Westerners, it is indisputably the 
treasure of our rich historical memory that is reflected, as far as I can 
see, in the dignified sensitivity of people who donÕt ask for anything but 
the minimum allowing them to continue living as the well-educated and highly 
intelligent men and women who should be less exposed to mentally exhausting 
pangs of melancholy and the socially debilitating impact of the economic 
predominance of the mafia that is the case nowadays.
>
>         Q: In your novel "Possesions" you started something 
quite interesting, something that you stopped pursuing after having written 
the first chapter though, and that particular thing is the psychoanalysis of 
art which also includes that of the artists and their respective works. 
Would it be possible to pursue research in this particular field, namely, an 
analysis of the history of art by following different works of art from 
different epochs?
>
>         Kristeva: I have really enjoyed myself writing about these 
different works of art, notably, on representations of decapitation, and I 
believe that the novel as genre, especially thriller which is an open genre 
and completely renewable allows for this type of digression in writing. But 
they have severely criticized me for it and told me that the book was too 
intellectual, very brainy and that the reader who wanted to know how the 
crime was being developed and the murder had to suffer by having had to 
wait. That was the malevolent reaction of those who have known me as an 
intellectual and who did not like the fact that I was going to write novels. 
So, there is a certain tendency in France, or perhaps elsewhere too, to put 
labels on people- if you are a teacher, remain a teacher, and if you are a 
writer, remain a writer, but the two of them at the same time- that you 
cannot be! So, perhaps I will continue in that direction , that ! of novel 
writing, I don't know. I have just finished the book about Colette, and my 
new thriller is still in notes and scratches, it is not articulated yet, but 
I am not sure that the fragments which deal with the so-called esthetic 
problems are excluded from it. It is true we cannot insert a dissertation in 
a novel, but perhaps we could set a basis there for it.
>
>         Q: I believe that one could read your book "The Intimate 
Revolt" in the light of your dialogue with Hannah Arendt. In fact, she 
was the one who has spoken of the misery of human beings who are not allowed 
to have "contemplative" ( read creative) life and who are thus 
condemned to lead an "active" life, that is, to have a miserable 
job. Is it the problem of our times that there exist such individuals who 
revolt against the fact that they cannot realize themselves? That is, who 
are angst-ridden and end up revolting against themselves?
>
>         Kristeva: I believe that you were right to make such 
assumptions about my eventual dialogue with Hannah Arendt -- I have been 
reading her work for quite a while and I'd say, in all modesty, that a lot 
of my writing, consciously or unconsciously, is tied to her thought . The 
idea of "revolt" was an effort to put myself in relationship with 
what we hear as "her own thinking" which, following Heidegger's, 
opposes and relativizes calculative reasoning. As she was very attentive to 
the work of Heidegger, she conceived of thinking as an inquiry, as an 
interrogatory process and opposed herself to the calculative framework which 
structures and characterizes contemporary behavior. My work has found itself 
a bit within this horizon but I also derived my experience from the 
psychoanalytical approach which relativizes everyone's identity as well as 
his/her past. Moreover, I derived my experience from literary works, such as 
Proust's "Reche! rche de temps perdu;" for instance, from his 
flexing of language, metaphors and the syntax. I tried to rethink the mental 
disposition which helps us carry on, the one which is not a mere repetition 
of a cliche, something which is like an act of rebirth, that is, rebirth 
which our thinking re-examines together with our interior life as well as 
the very opening of the inquiry. This is what I take "revolt" to 
be. So, it is neither an expression of simple existential anguish nor 
contesting a socio-political order, but re-establishment of things which we 
start again. And, in this sense, revolt which engulfs the psychic space is a 
form of life, be it the state of being in love, or an act of aesthetic 
creation or a project that could imply a very modest activity but which 
allows you to re-examine your past, that is, to interrogate it and renew it. 
And I believe that we have very few occasions in our daily lives which are 
quite standardized and banalized to work in that direction. ! The work that 
we do implies usually a repetition, the accomplishment o f a given task. The 
type of mental functioning which I call "revolt" is something that 
we lack and it is very dangerous because if it is lacking, we risk 
confronting two prospective pitfalls: one of them is 'somatization' when the 
psychic space closes itself off and the conflict manifests itself as bodily 
illness or, in the other situation, we get into violence, vandalism and 
wars. So, Vive la Rèvolte !
>
>         Interview conducted by Nina Zivancevic, In Paris, March-April 
2001
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>   >From: "Michael Eisenstadt" <michaele@HotPOP.com>
>   >Reply-To: austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net
>   >To: <austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net>
>   >Subject: Re: Win this lovely watch or left is right and right is 
left
>   >Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 11:30:21 -0600
>   >
>   >Wayne wrote:
>   >
>   > > Oh.  Go and find thyself a New Genre, Kristeva.
>   > > (One of Mike E. mostest favorite philosophers.  Right, 
Mike?)
>   >
>   >just to prove that i am reading your inspired spritzes i must
>   >acknowledge that i know of and have read at least 2 pages
>   >by Julia Kristeva.
>   >
>   >she is a French intellectual from Eastern Yerp and writes
>   >unreadable literary criticism some of which has unfortunately
>   >been translated into English.
>   >
>   >are you a leftie or a rightie, Wayne? wondering whether yule
>   >be wearing the Chinese mickey mouse watch on your left
>   >wrist (if a rightie) or the right (if a leftie)
>   >
>   >
>   >
>
>
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