A01=Julia Kristeva
adolescence
analysis
Author_Julia Kristeva
belief
Category=QDHR7
Category=QRAB
Category=QRAM
Category=QRM
catholicism
christian theology history
christianity
clash of religions
countertransference
critic
critical theory
donald winnicott
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
european culture
faith
fiction
genius
god
hannah arendt
humanism
identity
immigrant populations
islam
jesus
knowledge
meaning
mozart
philosophy
private life
proust
psyche
psychoanalytic techniques
psychological literature
religious philosophy
saint teresa of avila
secularization
self questioning
sexuality
sigmund freud
social history
suffering
transference
Product details
- ISBN 9780231147859
- Dimensions: 140 x 210mm
- Publication Date: 25 Oct 2011
- Publisher: Columbia University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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"Unlike Freud, I do not claim that religion is just an illusion and a source of neurosis. The time has come to recognize, without being afraid of 'frightening' either the faithful or the agnostics, that the history of Christianity prepared the world for humanism." So writes Julia Kristeva in this provocative work, which skillfully upends our entrenched ideas about religion, belief, and the thought and work of a renowned psychoanalyst and critic. With dialogue and essay, Kristeva analyzes our "incredible need to believe"--the inexorable push toward faith that, for Kristeva, lies at the heart of the psyche and the history of society. Examining the lives, theories, and convictions of Saint Teresa of Avila, Sigmund Freud, Donald Winnicott, Hannah Arendt, and other individuals, she investigates the intersection between the desire for God and the shadowy zone in which belief resides. Kristeva suggests that human beings are formed by their need to believe, beginning with our first attempts at speech and following through to our adolescent search for identity and meaning.
Kristeva then applies her insight to contemporary religious clashes and the plight of immigrant populations, especially those of Islamic origin. Even if we no longer have faith in God, Kristeva argues, we must believe in human destiny and creative possibility. Reclaiming Christianity's openness to self-questioning and the search for knowledge, Kristeva urges a "new kind of politics," one that restores the integrity of the human community.
Julia Kristeva is professor of linguistics at the Universite de Paris VII and the author of many acclaimed works and novels, including Murder in Byzantium, Strangers to Ourselves, New Maladies of the Soul, Time and Sense, Hannah Arendt, and Melanie Klein. She is the recipient of the Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought and the Holberg International Memorial Prize. Beverley Bie Brahic is a translator and poet living in Paris and Stanford, California. In addition to the writing of Kristeva, she has translated the works of Helene Cixous, Jacques Derrida, and Francis Ponge.
