Julia Kristeva

Paper Summary:

This paper, written as an article to a professional news letter, reviews the philosophy of Julia Kristeva. As the paper explains, Kristeva is a post-modernist, who wrote extensively on the challenges of clarifying one's own portrait of oneself, including the calculation of emotional intelligence. After a detailed discussion of Kristeva' theories as well as a review of her personal and professional background, the paper offers a critique and personal reaction to the post-modernist. The author summarizes Kristeva's theories, which lean toward the psychological state of mind, a terrain that many feared exploring and few have conquered. Further, the author explored the connection between Kristeva's ideas about emotional intelligence and leadership.

From the Paper:

"Kristeva's interest in PoMo and self have stemmed from her research in the psychological functions of language in critical situations. Her belief is that psychological functions of language occur before language even exists for an individual (e.g., infants) (Whelan, 1999, p. 292). Some of her research is based on what happens as language acquisition occurs in these individuals. For example, Kristeva's opposition to the theories in structural linguistics that she feels are nothing more than the thoughts of archivists, archaeologists, and necrophiliacs, drove her to the development of a new and post structural science, "semanalysis" (European Graduate School, 1997). Concerned with bringing the speaking body back into phenomenology and linguistics, semanalysis is designed to connect the body back into language from where she believes the logic of significance is already present (i.e., infants and the like). Kristeva uses semiotic (i.e., the science of signs/symbols, which exists in children before language acquisition develops), and symbolic (i.e., the domain of position and judgment which establishes a sign system and is always present) to differentiate her language analysis from others."

More papers on Julia Kristeva:

• Comparison Essay # 93915 : "Freud and Kristeva"
• Analytical Essay # 46618 : "Gender Trouble"
• Analytical Essay # 4698 : "Forgiveness is Power"

APA Citation:

MLA Citation: