Kristeva and the Question of Origins

Abstract

Julia Kristeva became and remains a student of Girard’s work, beginning with her doctoral dissertation, published as Revolution in Poetic Language. Girard features in works of paramount significance in Kristeva’s thought—Powers of Horror and Tales of Love—as well as in her essay “Women’s Time.” In its exploration of apocalyptic threats to global survival, Kristeva’s novel The Old Man and the Wolves also reflects Girard’s influence. Always, a sympathetic reader of Girard, Kristeva, sheds light on the question of origins in ways that strengthen the explanatory power of mimetic theory.