Desire in Language - (European Perspectives: A Social Thought and Cultural Criticism) by Julia Kristeva (Paperback)

About the Book

Desire in Language traces the path of an investigation into the semiotics of literature and the arts. Julia Kristeva proposes and tests theories centered on the nature and development of the novel.

Book Synopsis

Desire in Language presents a selection of Julia Kristeva's essays that trace the path of an investigation, extending over a period of ten years, into the semiotics of literature and the arts. Probing beyond the claims of Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, and others, Kristeva proposes and tests theories centered on the nature and development of the novel, and on what she has defined as a signifying practice in poetic language and pictural works. Desire in Language fully shows what Roman Jakobson has called Kristeva's "genuine gift of questioning generally adopted 'axioms, ' and her contrary gift of releasing various 'damned questions' from their traditional question marks."

Review Quotes

A provocative rereading of a diverse and crucial canon.-- "Criticism"

An important work for students of cultural processes and anyone interested in a semiotic approach to the problems of cultural history.--Hayden White "Journal of Modern History"

Kristeva's depiction of contrariety and anomaly at the heart of postmodernist theory is ingenious, provocative, and challenging.-- "Contemporary Literature"

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."