New Philosophy

Feminist Philosophy

Who is Julia Kristeva?

Since arriving in France in 1966 from Bulgaria, Julia Kristeva (1941–) has achieved international recognition for her writings about women in the psychoanalytic tradition. Her work is considered multi-disciplinary, encompassing art criticism, philosophy, and cultural critique. Kristeva’s primary theoretical contribution has been a distinction between the symbolic aspects of language and what she calls the semiotic, a psychic level of meaning based on a child’s relationship to its mother. Primary human desires are attached to the semiotic, which is based on the biological rhythms of the maternal body, although the semiotic eludes symbolic translation.