Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T14:59:34.474Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Freud's Oedipus and Kristeva's Narcissus: Three Heterogeneities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Abstract

The paper shows that three heterogeneities in Freud and Kristeva (unconscious/conscious, semiotic/symbolic, and imaginary/symbolic) expose the historical emergence, significance, and demise of psychic structures that present obstacles to our progressive political thinking. The oedipal and narcissistic structures of subjectivity represent the persistence of two past, bad forms of authority: paternal law and maternal authority. Contemporary psychoanalysis reveals a humankind going through the loss of this past in a process that opens up a different future of sexual difference in Western cultures.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Beardsworth, Sara. 2004. Julia Kristeva: Psychoanalysis and modernity. Albany: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
de Beauvoir, Simone. 1973. The second sex. Trans.Parsley, E. M.New York: Vintage.Google Scholar
Butler, Judith. 1997. The psychic life of power: Theories in subjection. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Butler, Judith 1993. Bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of sex. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Clement, Catherine, and Kristeva, Julia. 1998. The feminine and the sacred. Trans.Todd, Jane Marie. New York: Columbia University Press. 2001.Google Scholar
Critchley, Simon. 1999. Ethics‐politics‐subjectivity: Essays on Derrida, Levinas, and contemporary French thought. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Diprose, Rosalyn. 2002. Corporeal generosity: On giving with Nietzsche, Merleau‐Ponty, and Levinas. Albany: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Diprose, Rosalyn 1994. The bodies of women: Ethics, embodiment and sexual difference. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Freud, Sigmund. 1939. Moses and monotheism. In The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud. 1953–1974, vol. 23. London: Hogarth Press. (Henceforth SE).Google Scholar
Freud, Sigmund 1930/1961. Civilization and its discontents. Trans.Strachey, James. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Freud, Sigmund 1924. The dissolution of the Oedipus complex. In SE 13.Google Scholar
Freud, Sigmund 1923a. The infantile genital organization. In SE 19.Google Scholar
Freud, Sigmund 1923b. The ego and the id. In SE 19.Google Scholar
Freud, Sigmund 1912–13. Totem and taboo, Ed, . and trans. Strachey, James. In SE 13.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 1968. Knowledge and human interests. Trans.Shapiro, Jeremy J.Boston: Beacon Press. 1971.Google Scholar
Horkheimer, Max, and Adorno, Theodor W. 1969/2002. Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical fragments, ed. Noerr, Gunzel Schmid, Trans.Jephcott, Edmund. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Irigaray, Luce. 1984/1993. An ethics of sexual difference. Trans.Burke, Carolyn and Gill, Gillian C.London: Athlone Press.Google Scholar
Irigaray, Luce 1974/1985. Speculum of the other woman. Trans.Gill, Gillian C.Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Kristeva, Julia. 1996. The sense and non‐sense of revolt: The powers and limitations of psychoanalysis, vol. 1. Trans.Herman, Jeanine. New York: Columbia University Press. 2000.Google Scholar
Kristeva, Julia 1993/1995. New maladies of the soul. Trans.Guberman, Ross. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Kristeva, Julia 1988/1991. Strangers to ourselves. Trans.Roudiez, Leon S.London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.Google Scholar
Kristeva, Julia 1987/1989. Black sun: Melancholia and depression. Trans.Roudiez, Leon S.New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Kristeva, Julia 1983/1987. Tales of love. Trans.Roudiez, Leon S.New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Kristeva, Julia 1980/1982. Powers of horror: An essay on abjection. Trans.Roudiez, Leon S.New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Kristeva, Julia 1974/1984. Revolution in poetic language. Trans.Waller, Margaret. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Lacan, Jacques. 1977. Ecrits: A selection. Seminar 7. Trans.Sheridan, Alan. London: Tavistock Publications.Google Scholar
Lacan, Jacques 1959–1960/1992. The ethics of psychoanalysis. Trans.Porter, Dennis. New York and London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Levinas, Emmanuel. 1996. Basic philosophical writings, ed. Peperzak, Adriaan T., Critchley, Simon, and Bernasconi, Robert. Bloomington and Indiana: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Rieff, Philip. 1959. Freud: The mind of the moralist. New York: Viking Press.Google Scholar
Weiss, Gail. 1999. Body images: Embodiment as intercorporeality. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar