Category Archives: Julia Kristeva

Julia Kristeva’s Dostoyevsky – from Mikhail Bakhtin and Hans Holbein to psychoanalysis, religion and language 

Posted on June 7, 2026 by stuartelden

Julia Kristeva often references Fyodor Dostoyevsky in her work. She read him while growing up in Bulgaria, and continued after her move to France. She recalls her initial reading was against her father’s directive. As well as Dostoyevsky’s famous novels, … Continue reading →

Posted in Henri Lefebvre, Julia Kristeva, Sigmund Freud, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized, William Shakespeare | Leave a comment

Books received – Sollers, Kristeva, Shakespeare, Storm, Andrew & Ungar

Posted on June 5, 2026 by stuartelden

Some books bought new or second-hand recently, including some for ‘Sunday History’ posts; the first two volumes of the Arden Shakespeare fourth series; and Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm, The Genealogy of Genealogy: Nietzsche, Foucault and the Coils of Critical History, … Continue reading →

Posted in Friedrich Nietzsche, Julia Kristeva, Michel Foucault, William Shakespeare | 1 Comment

Books received – Simon, Macciocchi, Spinney, Kristeva, Leray, Mallory

Posted on May 9, 2026 by stuartelden

John K. Simon, Modern French Criticism; Maria-Antoinetta Macciocchi, Les femmes et leurs maîtres; Laura Spinney, Proto; Julia Kristeva, Dostoyevsky in the Face of Death; a special issue on Jean Leray; Ryan L. Allen, Adventures in the Archaic and J.P. Mallory, … Continue reading →

Posted in Julia Kristeva, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Michel Foucault | Leave a comment

Tel Quel goes to China: Sollers, Kristeva, Barthes, Pleynet, Wahl and the Cultural Revolution

Posted on May 3, 2026 by stuartelden

Tel Quel famously went to China in 1974. Tel Quel was an important literary journal founded in 1960, to which many of the major names of ‘French theory’ contributed, including Michel Foucault, Maurice Blanchot and Jacques Derrida. The journal was edited by Philippe … Continue reading →

Posted in Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva, Roland Barthes, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Indo-European Thought in Twentieth-Century France update 32 – trying to improve a draft

Posted on April 20, 2026 by stuartelden

As I said in the last update, I went to the EUI in Florence at the beginning of February with a nearly complete draft of my manuscript on Indo-European Thought in Twentieth-Century France, and had the plan to leave at the … Continue reading →

Posted in Étienne Wolff, Emile Benveniste, Fernand Braudel, Georges Dumézil, Julia Kristeva, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Maurice Blanchot, Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes, Sunday Histories, Travel, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Julia Kristeva’s portrait of Émile Benveniste in The Samurai

Posted on April 19, 2026 by stuartelden

Julia Kristeva’s first novel The Samurai was published in 1990. It’s not the greatest novel, but it’s well known that the book is a thinly disguised autobiography, with the central character Olga Morena modelled on herself. Many of the famous names of … Continue reading →

Posted in Emile Benveniste, Julia Kristeva, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized | 4 Comments

Indo-European Thought in Twentieth-Century France update 31 – Paris archives, library problems, and working towards a complete draft

Posted on February 12, 2026 by stuartelden

The draft of the Mapping Indo-European Thought manuscript is slowly coming together. I’ve just begun a Fernand Braudel fellowship at the European University Institute in Florence. My plan was to come here with a complete draft, and to leave with a better … Continue reading →

Posted in Claude Lévi-Strauss, Clémence Ramnoux, Emile Benveniste, Felix Guattari, Georges Dumézil, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Marcel Detienne, Michel Foucault, Mircea Eliade, Roland Barthes, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Books received – Kristeva, Ryback, Sergent, Ruwet, Deleuze, Serres, Burrin

Posted on January 19, 2026 by stuartelden

Mostly bought second-hand, but including Michel Serres, Hermes III, sent by University of Minnesota Press, and Gilles Deleuze, Sur les lignes de vie. The one without a clear title on the spine is Jean-Claude Ruwet, Introduction to Ethology: The Biology … Continue reading →

Posted in Gilles Deleuze, Julia Kristeva, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Michel Serres | Leave a comment

Jean Berthier, Voyage tranquille au pays des horreurs: Sollers, Barthes, Kristeva, Pleynet, Wahl… en Chine – Le Cherche Midi, January 2026

Posted on January 12, 2026 by stuartelden

Jean Berthier, Voyage tranquille au pays des horreurs: Sollers, Barthes, Kristeva, Pleynet, Wahl… en Chine – Le Cherche Midi, January 2026 Thanks to Barthes Studies on Bluesky for the link. Le roman documenté du voyage de Philippe Sollers, Roland Barthes, … Continue reading →

Posted in Julia Kristeva, Roland Barthes | 2 Comments

Did Benveniste read Derrida’s Of Grammatology?

Posted on October 12, 2025 by stuartelden

Jacques Derrida was certainly a careful reader of Émile Benveniste. He wrote a critique of Benveniste in “Le supplément de copule. La philosophie devant la linguistique” which appeared in 1971, in a special issue of Langages, “Épistémologie de la linguistique” edited … Continue reading →

Posted in Alexandre Koyré, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Emile Benveniste, Felix Guattari, Ferdinand de Saussure, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Julia Kristeva, Marcel Mauss, Martin Heidegger, Roland Barthes, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized | 1 Comment