Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection

Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection
ISBN-10
0231561415
ISBN-13
9780231561419
Category
Psychology
Pages
236
Language
English
Published
2024-02-13
Publisher
Columbia University Press
Author
Julia Kristeva

Description

In Powers of Horror, Julia Kristeva offers an extensive and profound consideration of the nature of abjection. Drawing on Freud and Lacan, she analyzes the nature of attitudes toward repulsive subjects and examines the function of these topics in the writings of Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Marcel Proust, James Joyce, and other authors. Kristeva identifies the abject with the eruption of the real and the presence of death. She explores how art and religion each offer ways of purifying the abject, arguing that amid abjection, boundaries between subject and object break down.

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