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At the Risk of Thinking: An Intellectual Biography of Julia Kristeva
At the Risk of Thinking is the first biography of Julia Kristeva--one of the most celebrated intellectuals in the world. Alice Jardine brings Kristeva's work to a broader readership by connecting Kristeva's personal journey, from her childhood in Communist Bulgaria to her adult life as an international public intellectual based in Paris, with the history of her ideas. Informed by extensive interviews with Kristeva herself, this telling of a remarkable woman's life story also draws out the complexities of Kristeva's writing, emphasizing her call for an urgent revival of bold interdisciplinary thinking in order to understand--and to act in--today's world.
- GenresNonfiction
400 pages, Paperback
First published January 23, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 26, 2022
julia kristeva has come to be one of the central nodal points in the thread/web of the irrational (non-rational?) that my brain has been following for the past two years. it's the rupture of the body and affectivity staining everything that i think that pulled me first to her semiotic/symbolic distinction. if you read this book, you will understand what i mean when i say that it is a bruised Body that stands at the centre of her entire intellectual oeuvre. my formless fascination with affect theory is what pulled me here because what captures the centrality of affect in cognition better than what makes your body? your life, a biography. to that extent, this book works. it shows you the body behind the Thought. so despite its irritatingly uneven and mind-numbingly repetitive and superfluous last hundred pages, it's worth a read if Kristeva at all interests you.
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February 28, 2020I’ve never doubted that Kristeva is a genius, this book proved it beyond theory and fiction. I’m so moved and inspired by her life and her work.
Also while I personally never had any doubt that Kristeva was not a spy, this should clear it up if you did.
Also while I personally never had any doubt that Kristeva was not a spy, this should clear it up if you did.
August 12, 2022
I decided to read this book in a round about way. I have been reading a lot of Mari Ruti's work, and noticed that she is an editor of the book. So partially because I have become fascinated with the work of Ruti, and because I share a fascination with what I coming to understand as mostly the early period of Kristeva's thought... I decided to read the survey of Kristeva and get a better grasp on her intellectual history.
I enjoyed reading it quite much, the author Jardine, loves Kristeva, and it is quite evident from the book. I got a good sense of how Kristeva's story has developed from her childhood in Bulgaria, to the moment she flew to Paris in the mid 60's, with only $5 to her name (a story she enjoys telling, and a story which also appears in Les Samouraïs). The biography, which could not be complete because of course Kristeva is still with us (in her 80's now) follows her even to the most recent events concluding with the shocking accusation that she was a Bulgarian spy which I read about in a New Yorker article in 2018 (even though the author claims that people are naive to believe so, and presents very good reasons why the accusations were false, I think she misses that people/readers found the premise of the story compelling, an proclaimed psychoanalytic literary giant accused of being spy is a compelling story, and I did, when I first read it).
Some personal thoughts that I am getting from Kristeva's work which I find to be very interesting. First, even though early Kristeva is very interested in the semiotics and even knew Lacan personally, I don't think she would ever claim to be Lacanian. I think linguistic theory in as Levi-Strauss was sort of a very hot topic in the milieu she was in, shared by many of her friends in the Paris circle, Barthes, Lacan, etc. So the fact that she is both interested in psychoanalysis and linguistic theory, something that both her and Lacan share, does not make her a Lacanian. I think, even though many conclusions she actually shares with Lacan as a result of this, she is more interested in Melanie Klein and the role of the maternal (at least this is what I am gathering from Jardine's reading of her work). Mari Ruti's recent book where she puts Lacanian thought into discussion with Kleinian thought is worth reading, and I think Kristeva's ideas can be put into context with this. I think Kristeva's notion of the death drive, is not Lacanian, rather she seems to be putting a negative spin on death drive, but I am also getting this through Jardine's lens. I think maybe an interesting exploration is how death drive may differ between Lacan and Kristeva. At first glance, I am sensing that death drive is something to be avoided and tragic part of society's "New Malaise" whereas death drive is unavoidable in the Lacanian subject.
Also, I am now curious to revisit Kristeva's lectures on Hannah Arendt. I think this is perhaps where the death drive issue stems from. Kristeva seems to want to marry psychoanalysis with Arendt, whereas Arendt detested psychoanalysis. This might even put the conflict between Kristeva and Zizek shall we say? As both women thinkers in exile, Kristeva seems to have decided to really push Arendt's notions of the potential for action in the world of appearances. In this way, Kristeva is arguing for some sort of anti-death drive notion which she posits in the Arendtian idea. This makes, much of the work she is writing about, geared toward a type of positivity based in a skepticism towards the destructive forces of mass society. I think this is a point of contention I have with her work.
Finally, I was struck by the word singularity which continually reappears in the book, and which seems to be central to Kristeva's idea of the battante. This word has been on my mind since I read Mari Ruti's work on The Singularity of Being, which I found to be excellent. I personally have not come across this word in Kristeva's text, yet, however, either Ruti is trying to bring Kristeva closer to Lacanian thought, or Ruti the editor has emphasized this word.... anyways... it's a point I agree with on the site of potential action for the subject. I am now interested in re-reading Ruti's text.
It was definitely worth my time to read it, and I suggest for anyone who is interested in Kristeva's work. 5 stars.
I enjoyed reading it quite much, the author Jardine, loves Kristeva, and it is quite evident from the book. I got a good sense of how Kristeva's story has developed from her childhood in Bulgaria, to the moment she flew to Paris in the mid 60's, with only $5 to her name (a story she enjoys telling, and a story which also appears in Les Samouraïs). The biography, which could not be complete because of course Kristeva is still with us (in her 80's now) follows her even to the most recent events concluding with the shocking accusation that she was a Bulgarian spy which I read about in a New Yorker article in 2018 (even though the author claims that people are naive to believe so, and presents very good reasons why the accusations were false, I think she misses that people/readers found the premise of the story compelling, an proclaimed psychoanalytic literary giant accused of being spy is a compelling story, and I did, when I first read it).
Some personal thoughts that I am getting from Kristeva's work which I find to be very interesting. First, even though early Kristeva is very interested in the semiotics and even knew Lacan personally, I don't think she would ever claim to be Lacanian. I think linguistic theory in as Levi-Strauss was sort of a very hot topic in the milieu she was in, shared by many of her friends in the Paris circle, Barthes, Lacan, etc. So the fact that she is both interested in psychoanalysis and linguistic theory, something that both her and Lacan share, does not make her a Lacanian. I think, even though many conclusions she actually shares with Lacan as a result of this, she is more interested in Melanie Klein and the role of the maternal (at least this is what I am gathering from Jardine's reading of her work). Mari Ruti's recent book where she puts Lacanian thought into discussion with Kleinian thought is worth reading, and I think Kristeva's ideas can be put into context with this. I think Kristeva's notion of the death drive, is not Lacanian, rather she seems to be putting a negative spin on death drive, but I am also getting this through Jardine's lens. I think maybe an interesting exploration is how death drive may differ between Lacan and Kristeva. At first glance, I am sensing that death drive is something to be avoided and tragic part of society's "New Malaise" whereas death drive is unavoidable in the Lacanian subject.
Also, I am now curious to revisit Kristeva's lectures on Hannah Arendt. I think this is perhaps where the death drive issue stems from. Kristeva seems to want to marry psychoanalysis with Arendt, whereas Arendt detested psychoanalysis. This might even put the conflict between Kristeva and Zizek shall we say? As both women thinkers in exile, Kristeva seems to have decided to really push Arendt's notions of the potential for action in the world of appearances. In this way, Kristeva is arguing for some sort of anti-death drive notion which she posits in the Arendtian idea. This makes, much of the work she is writing about, geared toward a type of positivity based in a skepticism towards the destructive forces of mass society. I think this is a point of contention I have with her work.
Finally, I was struck by the word singularity which continually reappears in the book, and which seems to be central to Kristeva's idea of the battante. This word has been on my mind since I read Mari Ruti's work on The Singularity of Being, which I found to be excellent. I personally have not come across this word in Kristeva's text, yet, however, either Ruti is trying to bring Kristeva closer to Lacanian thought, or Ruti the editor has emphasized this word.... anyways... it's a point I agree with on the site of potential action for the subject. I am now interested in re-reading Ruti's text.
It was definitely worth my time to read it, and I suggest for anyone who is interested in Kristeva's work. 5 stars.
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January 20, 2022194 J373 2020
June 14, 2022
Uneven but useful
There is a lot to digest in this biography. It feels both written with some ideological attachments and yet also oddly surface level at once.
There are places where what feel like major works (Powers of Horror, Black Sun) get only as much room as what seems like more minor works, if not less.
The biography of it all can have a lack of narrative flow and the consideration of the ideas can sometimes be lacking. That said, this feels useful as a resource more than as a text, per se. I could see returning to this to get a perspective on various texts.
As someone who was looking for, if not an introduction than something to provide a deepening of understanding of the overall corpus of her work, this was useful but not fully satisfying.
There is a lot to digest in this biography. It feels both written with some ideological attachments and yet also oddly surface level at once.
There are places where what feel like major works (Powers of Horror, Black Sun) get only as much room as what seems like more minor works, if not less.
The biography of it all can have a lack of narrative flow and the consideration of the ideas can sometimes be lacking. That said, this feels useful as a resource more than as a text, per se. I could see returning to this to get a perspective on various texts.
As someone who was looking for, if not an introduction than something to provide a deepening of understanding of the overall corpus of her work, this was useful but not fully satisfying.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews