Date: Sun, 16 Jun 1996 16:46:36 +0100 (BST)
From: "K. O'Grady" <ko10001-AT-cus.cam.ac.uk>
Subject: Kristeva and politics....



Hiya

Just a few curious questions and comments below.


On Sun, 16 Jun 1996, chloe sekouri wrote:
> 
> Another thing: like Irigaray, Kristeva has also relocated to the US; I
> believe she teaches at one of the American "ivy league" colleges. ( I know
> she was "on loan" from one such school when she taught a grad seminar  at
> the University of Toronto in 1993, anyway).  Kristeva's  homophobia and

Kristeva's post is at the University of Paris VII.  She also has a post 
at Columbia University in the US and teaches a course for the Comparative 
Literature dept. at the University of Toronto (she has done this twice) 
crossed referenced with the French department there. 

She still spends much of her time in France (and elsewhere) so I would 
hesitate to say *relocated*.  

Has Irigaray relocated?  I am curious.  I thought she was at 2 different 
research institutes in France.  Would love an update.


> heterocentrisim isn't suprising, given her other poltically retorgressive
> political opinions. In my opinion her outlook tends to be very conservative
> (although others inspired by her may not share this bias).  I'm curious why
> she still counts as a "French feminist" . . . 

Again, I am curious about Kristeva's "politically retrogressive" views.  
Like what?  

I know she is often credited for many antifeminist views, but this tends 
to be a convenient (mis)reading (that is, out of context, or only a partial 
reading of) of her work.  Please feel free to contradict me if you know 
something that I am unaware of.

Kristeva is fond of overstatements (her *literary* style) and it is very 
easy to pull a daming quotation out of context.  But she often balances 
her hyperbolic semantics with a detailed discussion of every aspect of an 
argument.  Often the "second half" of a thought is not quoted by her 
critics.  

She most certainly has an ambivalent attitude toward "feminism" but this 
is complex.  It has more to do with the way "feminism" has taken shape in 
france (entwined with humanism, etc).  So her ambivalence to feminism is 
often lost or misunderstood in an anglo-american context.  She supports, 
however, all the "major causes" (if i can generalise this much) that 
american feminists do.  

As for her "homophobia", I also think that is overstated and not a 
given.  This is not to say that a good case can't be made for reading her 
this way, but it would most certainly have to take into account her very 
thorough reading of Proust (which is her only extended discussion of 
homosexuality) and most criticisms do not do this.  


I am not trying to defend Kristeva, since my reading of her is as 
ambivalent as her relation to feminism, but what I do want to prevent is 
a cursory dismissal of a very complex and exhaustive body of work which 
has much to offer to semiotics psychoanalysis, and feminism -- though not 
uncritically.


So, again, I am not critiquing your post, though it may sound like it, 
what I am trying to do is to get some examples from you.

What are her conservative political positions?  Where do you find her 
homophobic and how, etc. etc. 

This is not to say that you won't find any!


Kathy