New forms of revolt: essays on Kristeva's intimate politics

232 Pages·2018·1.623 MB·English

by  Hansen, Sarah K.;Kristeva, Julia;Tuvel, Rebecca

New Forms of Revolt
i
A volume in the SUNY series in Gender Theory
——————
Tina Chanter, editor
New Forms of Revolt
Essays on Kristeva’s Intimate Politics
Edited by
Sarah K. Hansen
and
Rebecca Tuvel
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2017 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever
without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system
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magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior
permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Production, Diane Ganeles
Marketing, Kate R. Seburyamo
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hansen, Sarah K., editor.
Title: New forms of revolt : essays on Kristeva’s intimate politics / edited
by Sarah K. Hansen and Rebecca Tuvel.
Description: Albany, NY : State University of New York, 2017. | Series: SUNY
series in gender theory | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016031496 (print) | LCCN 2016048539 (ebook) | ISBN
9781438465210 (hardcover: alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438465227 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Kristeva, Julia, 1941–
Classification: LCC B2430.K7544 N49 2017 (print) | LCC B2430.K7544 (ebook) |
DDC 194—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016031496
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
Sarah K. Hansen and Rebecca Tuvel
Part I
Kristeva: Revolt and Political Action
1. New Forms of Revolt 17
Julia Kristeva
2. Spectacle and Revolt: On the Intersection of Psychoanalysis
and Social Theory in Julia Kristeva’s Work 23
Surti Singh
3. The Chiasmus of Action and Revolt: Julia Kristeva,
Hannah Arendt, and Gillian Rose 43
Sara Beardsworth
Part II
Imagining New Intimacies:
Anti-Racist, Aesthetic, and Clinical Revolts
4. Revolt and the Lettered Self 67
Elena Ruiz
vi Contents
5. Extimate Trauma, Intimate Ethics: Kristevan Revolt in the
Artwork of Kara Walker 85
Amy Ray Stewart
6. Patient Interpretation: Kristeva’s Model for the Caregiver 107
Melinda C. Hall
Part III
Language and Narrative in Kristeva
7. Language as Poeisis: Linguistic Productivity and Forms of
Resistance in Kristeva and Saussure 129
Beata Stawarska
8. Peregrine Genius and Thought-Things: Julia Kristeva and
Hannah Arendt on Revolt as Salutary Estrangement 155
Elaine P. Miller
9. Eurydicean Revolt and Metam-Orphic Writing in Arendt and
Kristeva 171
Sarah Kathryn Marshall
10. At the Risk of Thinking: On Writing an Intellectual
Biography of Julia Kristeva 195
Alice Jardine
Contributors 213
Index 217
Acknowledgments
Editing a book is a challenging and rewarding task. We are grateful to the
many colleagues who have supported this project since its inception at the
2014 meeting of the Kristeva Circle. Andrew Kenyon of SUNY Press has
been a thoughtful and patient guide through the process of publication.
Special thanks are also due to Kelly Oliver for her mentorship and friendship.
Kara Walker, Greg Bright and Eugenio Dittborn have generously given
permission to reproduce images that appear in Chapters 3, 4, and 5. A dif-
ferent version of Alice Jardine’s essay “At the Risk of Thinking: On Writing
an Intellectual Biography of Julia Kristeva” will appear in Being Contempo-
rary: (Un)Timely Essays in French Culture, eds. Lia Brozgal and Sara Kippur,
forthcoming from Liverpool University Press.
vii

Introduction
Twenty Years of Revolt
Sarah K. Hansen and Rebecca Tuvel
“Intimacy is not the new prison.
The need for connection might one day initiate another politics.”
—Julia Kristeva, “New Forms of Revolt”
The notion of intimate revolt has been a continuing theme in Julia Kristeva’s
writing for almost twenty years. Since its initial formulation in The Sense
and Nonsense of Revolt (1996), Kristeva has theorized it in numerous texts,
from her studies of religious belief and artistic production to her series on
feminine genius and her series on the “powers and limits of psychoanalysis.”
Across this ever-growing body of work, she describes revolt as a basic condi-
tion of social life imperiled by global crises. It is an event that regenerates
symbolic bonds and empowers individuals to make meaning. Yet today,
she warns, it is not clear who can revolt or against whom. From economic
collapse to climate change, from terrorism to social inequality, our psyches
are deprived of supportive social relations and deep inner experiences. In
this context, against whom or what should our fragile psyches revolt? It is
hard to locate contemporary power because it is disseminated in numerous
institutions, parties, and normalizing forces. And if power cannot be located,
how can it be opposed or overthrown?
This volume engages with the theory of revolt, focusing especially on
its maturation. Kristeva’s shift away from the revolutionary stance of Revolu-
tion in Poetic Language (1974) has been addressed in countless publications.
However, few texts engage with the development of intimate revolt itself.
1