Desire in Language

Desire in Language

A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art

$24.00

Publication Date: 30th January 2024

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. Read More
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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. Read More
Description
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.”
Details
  • Price: $24.00
  • Pages: 352
  • Carton Quantity: 20
  • Publisher: Columbia University Press
  • Imprint: Columbia University Press
  • Series: European Perspectives: A Series in Social Thought and Cultural Criticism
  • Publication Date: 30th January 2024
  • Trim Size: 5.5 x 8.5 in
  • ISBN: 9780231214551
  • Format: Paperback
  • BISACs:
    LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General
    LITERARY CRITICISM / General
Reviews
Kristeva’s depiction of contrariety and anomaly at the heart of postmodernist theory is ingenious, provocative, and challenging.
- Contemporary Literature
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
A provocative rereading of a diverse and crucial canon.
- Criticism
Author Bio
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.”
Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction by Leon S. Roudiez
1. The Ethics of Linguistics
2. The Bounded Text
3. Word, Dialogue, and Novel
4. How Does One Speak to Literature?
5. From One Identity to an Other
6. The Father, Love, and Banishment
7. The Novel as Polylogue
8. Giotto's Joy
9. Motherhood According to Giovanni Bellini
10. Place Names
Notes
Index

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.”
  • Price: $24.00
  • Pages: 352
  • Carton Quantity: 20
  • Publisher: Columbia University Press
  • Imprint: Columbia University Press
  • Series: European Perspectives: A Series in Social Thought and Cultural Criticism
  • Publication Date: 30th January 2024
  • Trim Size: 5.5 x 8.5 in
  • ISBN: 9780231214551
  • Format: Paperback
  • BISACs:
    LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General
    LITERARY CRITICISM / General
Kristeva’s depiction of contrariety and anomaly at the heart of postmodernist theory is ingenious, provocative, and challenging.
– Contemporary Literature
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
A provocative rereading of a diverse and crucial canon.
– Criticism
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.”

Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction by Leon S. Roudiez
1. The Ethics of Linguistics
2. The Bounded Text
3. Word, Dialogue, and Novel
4. How Does One Speak to Literature?
5. From One Identity to an Other
6. The Father, Love, and Banishment
7. The Novel as Polylogue
8. Giotto's Joy
9. Motherhood According to Giovanni Bellini
10. Place Names
Notes
Index