Julia Kristeva is one of the most creative and prolific writers to
address the personal, social, and political trials of our times.
Linguist, psychoanalyst, social and cultural theorist, and
novelist, Kristeva's broad interdisciplinary appeal has impacted
areas across the humanities and social sciences.
S. K. Keltner's book provides the first comprehensive
introduction to the breadth of Kristeva's work. In an original and
insightful analysis, Keltner presents Kristeva's thought as the
coherent development and elaboration of a complex, multidimensional
threshold constitutive of meaning and subjectivity. The
'threshold' indicates Kristeva's primary sphere of concern,
the relationship between the speaking being and its particular
social and historical conditions; and Kristeva's interdisciplinary
approach. Kristeva's vision, Keltner argues, opens a unique
perspective within contemporary discourses attentive to issues of
meaning, subjectivity, and social and political life. By
emphasizing Kristeva's attention to the permeable borders of
psychic and social life, Keltner offers innovative readings of the
concepts most widely discussed in Kristeva scholarship: the
semiotic and symbolic, abjection, love, and loss. She also provides
new interpretations of some of the most controversial issues
surrounding Kristeva's work, including Kristeva's conceptions of
intimacy, social and cultural difference, and Oedipal subjectivity,
by contextualizing them within her methodological approach and
oeuvre as a whole.
Julia Kristeva: Thresholds is an engaging and accessible
introduction to Kristeva's theoretical and fictional works that
will be of interest to both students and scholars across the
humanities and social sciences.
