Strangers to Ourselves - (European Perspectives: A Social Thought and Cultural Criticism) by Julia Kristeva (Paperback)

About the Book

This book is concerned with the notion of the stranger--the foreigner, outsider, or alien in a country and society not their own--as well as the notion of strangeness within the self, a person's deep sense of being, as distinct from outside appearance and their conscious idea of self.

Book Synopsis

This book is concerned with the notion of the stranger--the foreigner, outsider, or alien in a country and society not their own--as well as the notion of strangeness within the self, a person's deep sense of being, as distinct from outside appearance and their conscious idea of self.

Julia Kristeva begins with the personal and moves outward by examining world literature and philosophy. She discusses the foreigner in Greek tragedy, in the Bible, and in the literature of the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Enlightenment, and the twentieth century. By considering the legal status of foreigners throughout history, Kristeva offers a different perspective on our own civilization.

Review Quotes

[An] elegant account of the links between subjectivity and heteronomy.-- "Radical Philosophy"

Kristeva suggests that the antidote to xenophobia, racism and other weapons against outsiders is to recognize that "the foreigner is within us." [Strangers to Ourselves] demonstrates [Kristeva's] amazing command of history, politics, literature, linguistics, and psychology. . . . [and] argues powerfully for a radical examination of self, beginning with the realization that what is most fearful to us in the stranger may be the very quality we do not want to recognize in ourselves.-- "San Francisco Examiner-Chronicle"

Kristeva's most accessible book to date, of broad historical scope and deep personal passion. It is also a very wise book-- "Comparative Literature"

About the Author

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."