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Strangers to Ourselves

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( 458 ratings, 28 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
Strangers to Ourselves explores the concept of the "stranger"—both as the foreigner in society and the unfamiliar aspects within our own identities. Julia Kristeva moves from personal reflection to a broad cultural analysis, examining representations of foreigners in Greek tragedy, the Bible, and literature from various historical periods. She also investigates the changing legal status of foreigners, providing insights that resonate with contemporary issues of nationality and integration, particularly in France.
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Format: Paperback / softback
$11700

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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

This book will appeal to readers interested in arts and culture, philosophy, literature, and social issues concerning identity and immigration. It is especially relevant for those seeking thoughtful perspectives on nationalism and the complexities of self and other in a globalised world.

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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.

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.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

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.

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. She discusses the legal status of foreigners throughout history, gaining perspective on our own civilization.

Her insights into the problems of nationality, particularly in France, are more timely and relevant in an increasingly integrated and fractious world.

Series: European Perspectives: A Series in Social Thought and Cultural Criticism

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Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

Praised for its profound interdisciplinary approach, the San Francisco Examiner-Chronicle highlights Kristeva's mastery of history, politics, literature, linguistics, and psychology. The review emphasises her argument that overcoming xenophobia involves recognising the "foreigner within us," advocating a radical self-examination to better understand and accept others.

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780231071574

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 10 June 1991

Country: United States

Imprint: Columbia University Press

Audience: Professional and scholarly

DIMENSIONS

Weight: 250g

Pages: 230

About the Author

Julia Kristeva is a leading French intellectual, practicing psychoanalyst, and Professor of Linguistics at the Universite de Paris VII. Columbia University Press has published other books by Kristeva in English: In the Beginning Was Love, Tales of Love, Revolution in Poetic Language, Powers of Horror, Desire in Language, Black Sun, Language: The Unknown, and The Kristeva Reader.

Also by Julia Kristeva

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  • Teresa, My Love
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  • Strangers to Ourselves
    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. Strangers to Ourselves begins with the personal and moves outward by examining...
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  • Dostoyevsky, or The Flood of Language
    Growing up in Bulgaria, Julia Kristeva was warned by her father not to read Dostoyevsky. “Of course, and as usual,” she recalls, “I disobeyed paternal orders and plunged into Dosto. Dazzled, overwhelmed, engulfed.” Kristeva would go on to become one of the most important figures in European intellectual life—and she would return over and over again to Dostoyevsky, still haunted...
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  • Proust and the Sense of Time
    Julia Kristeva presents a thoroughly original and compelling reading of Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, first delivered at the 1992 T.S. Eliot Memorial Lectures at Canterbury. Kristeva's first essay, "Proust and Time Embodied," takes a broadly psychoanalytical, linguistically sensitive approach to Proust's exploration of time and the operation of memory. Next, in "In Search of Madeline," she delves into Proust's...
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  • Murder in Byzantium
    In this absorbing, suspenseful novel, Julia Kristeva combines social satire, medieval history, philosophy, psychoanalytic theory, and autobiography within a gruesome murder mystery. Murder in Byzantium deftly moves from eleventh-century Europe, wracked by the turbulence of the First Crusade, to the sun-dappled, cultural wasteland of present-day Santa Varvara, threatened by religious cults, gangs, and a serial killer on the loose. This...
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  • Desire in Language
    Desire in Language traces the path of an investigation, extending over a period of ten years, into the semiotics of literature and the arts. But the essays of Julia Kristeva in this volume, though they often deal with literature and art, do not amount to either "literary criticism" or "art criticism." Their concern, writes Kristeva, "remains intratheoretical: they are based...
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  • Language: The Unknown
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