5.5.20 Julia Kristeva and the abject
‘ the abject refers to the human reaction (horror, vomit) to a threatened breakdown in meaning caused by the loss of the distinction between subject and object or between self and other.’
‘Kristeva refers, instead, to the moment in our psychosexual development when we established a border or separation between human and animal, between culture and that which preceded it.’
'the abject marks the moment when we separated ourselves from the mother, when we began to recognize a boundary between "me" and other, between "me" and "(m)other." (Felluga, 2011)
The abject = a threat
Loss of distinction between self and other
Links between human and non human or more than human? Interconnectedness?
Individuation (Jung) – boundaries between self and other, between self and (m)other (My son and his (m)other too!)
Kristeva and the aesthetics of contamination
‘The Kleinian notion of fantasy could be described as a chiasmic reversal between the relation of mental world and body. The psychic meaning has been thrown out from its mental place and placed in the body. The unconscious fantasies involved are always related to another body: the trace of another person being inscribed in an experience wavering between pleasure and displeasure, crossing the borders inside/outside. Affects and sensations become part of the same universe, carried by an inevitability that seems to strive towards an erasure of the border between psychic world and body. It seems, then, as if Klein's world is striving towards contagion, or contamination, an energy or power making bodies infectious to one another. The drive motivation of fantasy breaks down the differences that keep them apart. Such a notion of the body holds contamination not as a risk or disease but as an immanent possibility of openings and becomings. Kristeva's aesthetics in the psychoanalytic work, such it has been influenced by her reading of Klein, could be described as an aesthetics of contamination. Contamination is the breaking down between inside and outside, an aesthetics of contamination a phenomenon through which I am moved or touched, by my fellow being. The touch appears with intensity and feverishness where the separating limit between inside and outside runs most thinly. Is this the reason why we also see a new interest for that which has no shape or form but which can still be related to the object of a human other, phenomena such as blood, guts, bodily fluids? These liminal phenomena can be read as manifest expressions of the fact that the other encountered in a work of art may have an infectious function. Rather than being mere products of fantasy, art and literature catches the 'beyond' of fantasy.
In Aristotle's Poetics, tragedy has been theorised as a form of contamination or miasma, balanced in the work through catharsis. In the ancient world, the idea of contamination is related to the collapse of a certain social and cultural order, where certain categories that should not meet have infected each other, such as the plague coming to Thebe as a punishment for the Oedipal fate. With contamination, chaos follows and a ritual purification is demanded to compensate for the social breakdown, catharsis restoring the balance and the order. In tragedy's staging of an original contamination, the ritual expulsion of that which is foreign becomes the bond of the social and cultural community; art replaces religion as the unravelling of expulsion. In Kristeva's aesthetics, as in ancient tragedy, there is no substantial difference between the experiences of expulsion at an individual level and those of the community. In the sphere of tragedy, concepts such as miasma and catharsis cut across individual and political bodies. The powerful concept of abjection does the same with contemporary art.
One of the most potent expressions of Kristeva's aesthetics, it cannot simply be equated with l'informe to use Bataille's expression: an indeterminable phenomenon that is impossible to contain within our traditional categories of intentionality and understanding. The term of abjection is not simply synonymous with expulsion. Contamination must be avoided. At the same time, however, we carry a secret desire within us to erase borders. Abjection is produced in search of a new kind of knowledge and therefore a motor of social transformation. Kristeva finds the production of a transfomative inner experience in her reading of Bataille. The realisation of what Bataille calls inner experience puts the object in question and produces a new kind of knowledge, not an object. Such experience cannot be theorised in the same terms as a material object. The abject is not simply something that is outside of us, and that we are disgusted by. In being neither 'subject nor object' it seems, first of all, to threaten the borders of the self. In difference to the object it does not give any support to the subject; it is a 'fallen object, which pulls me to the point where meaning collapses'. Abjection is exclusion or rejection rather than denial or denegation, which means that it is not detached from the body at a symbolic level: the abject has not been repressed through a process of negation but can be traced back to a rejection that has taken place before the subject of judgement is fully developed - 'I' reject myself and comes to be in and through this very rejection. Abjection is the other side of perversion: it is repressive, and anchored in the superego, creating the shield of a fragile ego and destroying the psychic space of the subject at the same time. The shield of the self is dominated by feelings of disgust. On a subjective level, corporeal rejection marks a differentiation between inner and outer world, the body of the self creating its contours, the abject being a remainder that has to be cut off in order for the self to be kept 'pure'. The abject is, however, a confirmation of the fact that the subject can only be conceived of as a heterogeneous construction that is always already contaminated. Bodily fluids mark a separation between inner and outer world, which is why the body acquires a fragile contour through disgust. The problem, however, is that the self is expelled in the same process.’(p104,105)
Pleasure and displeasure linked to the abject….conflicting responses? Maybe eg squeezing a spot, having a big poo, selfharming? (p104)
Kristeva’s ‘aesthetics of contamination’ – ‘breaking down between inside and outside’, but also being ‘moved and touched’ by the other. A paradox? Significance of physical touch? (p 104)
‘Is this the reason why we also see a new interest for that which has no shape or form but which can still be related to the object of a human other, phenomena such as blood, guts, bodily fluids?’ This makes me think of Bataille’s form and formlessness… and my knitting, unravelling…
‘The other’ in art - ‘that the other encountered in a work of art may have an infectious function… art and literature catches the 'beyond' of fantasy.’ (p105) Art, infection and what is the ‘beyond of fantasy’?
Contamination and catharis – a question of balance, purification. ‘Art replace religion as the unravelling of expulsion’ (p105) It links the individual and the community, self and other, as does my work.
‘there is no substantial difference between the experiences of expulsion at an individual level and those of the community. In the sphere of tragedy, concepts such as miasma and catharsis cut across individual and political bodies. The powerful concept of abjection does the same with contemporary art.’ (p 105)
This makes links between the individual and the political and the ways that abjection can cut across contemporary art.
Also, she compares Kristeva’s abjection with Bataille’s formlessness – abjection is linked to ‘a secret desire to erase borders’ yet ‘contamination must be avoided’ Another tension, yet also linked to ‘a new knowledge’, a ‘motor of social transformation’ and ‘the production of a transfomative inner experience’. Negatives and positives, inside and out, borders erased, blurring of boundaries.
Interesting that she also regards abjection as transformative. Is it about knowing one’s Self, or about knowing where the borders are between self and other? Self knowledge? Individuation?
‘The realisation of what Bataille calls inner experience puts the object in question and produces a new kind of knowledge, not an object. Such experience cannot be theorised in the same terms as a material object. The abject is not simply something that is outside of us, and that we are disgusted by. In being neither 'subject nor object' it seems, first of all, to threaten the borders of the self.’ (p105)
Neither ‘object nor subject’, the abject threatens the ‘borders of the self’. The space/border/boundary/limen/threshold between self and other. It reminds me of the divide between private and public:
In discussing Habermas’ public spheres, Crossman states, ‘the boundary between the public and private sphere is not fixed; instead, it is flexible and permeable, and is always fluctuating and evolving’ (2019). Does this mean that the abject boundary between self and other is also not fixed, ‘flexible and permeable’… ‘always fluctuating and evolving’? A curious thought.
More links between the body, abjection and the self:
‘Abjection is exclusion or rejection rather than denial or denegation, which means that it is not detached from the body at a symbolic level… corporeal rejection marks a differentiation between inner and outer world, the body of the self creating its contours, the abject being a remainder that has to be cut off in order for the self to be kept 'pure'’ (p105).
Separation again - the abject has to be ‘cut off’ for the self to be kept pure’
Links between form and formlessness and Bataille p105
Racism, and xenophobia as forms of abjection, nationalism and religion as c.a. p106
Crossman, A. (2019) Understanding Private and Public Spheres Available at: https://www.thoughtco.com/private-and-public-spheres-3026464 (Accessed 25 March 2020)
Felluga, D. (2011) ‘Modules on Kristeva: On the Abject’ in Introductory Guide to Critical Theory Available at: https://cla.purdue.edu/academic/english/theory/psychoanalysis/kristevaabject.html (Accessed 5 May 2020)
Sjoholm, C. (2005) Kristeva and the political Available at: file:///C:/Users/TEMP/Downloads/1005927.pdf (Accessed 5 May 2020)
‘Kristeva refers, instead, to the moment in our psychosexual development when we established a border or separation between human and animal, between culture and that which preceded it.’
'the abject marks the moment when we separated ourselves from the mother, when we began to recognize a boundary between "me" and other, between "me" and "(m)other." (Felluga, 2011)
The abject = a threat
Loss of distinction between self and other
Links between human and non human or more than human? Interconnectedness?
Individuation (Jung) – boundaries between self and other, between self and (m)other (My son and his (m)other too!)
Kristeva and the aesthetics of contamination
‘The Kleinian notion of fantasy could be described as a chiasmic reversal between the relation of mental world and body. The psychic meaning has been thrown out from its mental place and placed in the body. The unconscious fantasies involved are always related to another body: the trace of another person being inscribed in an experience wavering between pleasure and displeasure, crossing the borders inside/outside. Affects and sensations become part of the same universe, carried by an inevitability that seems to strive towards an erasure of the border between psychic world and body. It seems, then, as if Klein's world is striving towards contagion, or contamination, an energy or power making bodies infectious to one another. The drive motivation of fantasy breaks down the differences that keep them apart. Such a notion of the body holds contamination not as a risk or disease but as an immanent possibility of openings and becomings. Kristeva's aesthetics in the psychoanalytic work, such it has been influenced by her reading of Klein, could be described as an aesthetics of contamination. Contamination is the breaking down between inside and outside, an aesthetics of contamination a phenomenon through which I am moved or touched, by my fellow being. The touch appears with intensity and feverishness where the separating limit between inside and outside runs most thinly. Is this the reason why we also see a new interest for that which has no shape or form but which can still be related to the object of a human other, phenomena such as blood, guts, bodily fluids? These liminal phenomena can be read as manifest expressions of the fact that the other encountered in a work of art may have an infectious function. Rather than being mere products of fantasy, art and literature catches the 'beyond' of fantasy.
In Aristotle's Poetics, tragedy has been theorised as a form of contamination or miasma, balanced in the work through catharsis. In the ancient world, the idea of contamination is related to the collapse of a certain social and cultural order, where certain categories that should not meet have infected each other, such as the plague coming to Thebe as a punishment for the Oedipal fate. With contamination, chaos follows and a ritual purification is demanded to compensate for the social breakdown, catharsis restoring the balance and the order. In tragedy's staging of an original contamination, the ritual expulsion of that which is foreign becomes the bond of the social and cultural community; art replaces religion as the unravelling of expulsion. In Kristeva's aesthetics, as in ancient tragedy, there is no substantial difference between the experiences of expulsion at an individual level and those of the community. In the sphere of tragedy, concepts such as miasma and catharsis cut across individual and political bodies. The powerful concept of abjection does the same with contemporary art.
One of the most potent expressions of Kristeva's aesthetics, it cannot simply be equated with l'informe to use Bataille's expression: an indeterminable phenomenon that is impossible to contain within our traditional categories of intentionality and understanding. The term of abjection is not simply synonymous with expulsion. Contamination must be avoided. At the same time, however, we carry a secret desire within us to erase borders. Abjection is produced in search of a new kind of knowledge and therefore a motor of social transformation. Kristeva finds the production of a transfomative inner experience in her reading of Bataille. The realisation of what Bataille calls inner experience puts the object in question and produces a new kind of knowledge, not an object. Such experience cannot be theorised in the same terms as a material object. The abject is not simply something that is outside of us, and that we are disgusted by. In being neither 'subject nor object' it seems, first of all, to threaten the borders of the self. In difference to the object it does not give any support to the subject; it is a 'fallen object, which pulls me to the point where meaning collapses'. Abjection is exclusion or rejection rather than denial or denegation, which means that it is not detached from the body at a symbolic level: the abject has not been repressed through a process of negation but can be traced back to a rejection that has taken place before the subject of judgement is fully developed - 'I' reject myself and comes to be in and through this very rejection. Abjection is the other side of perversion: it is repressive, and anchored in the superego, creating the shield of a fragile ego and destroying the psychic space of the subject at the same time. The shield of the self is dominated by feelings of disgust. On a subjective level, corporeal rejection marks a differentiation between inner and outer world, the body of the self creating its contours, the abject being a remainder that has to be cut off in order for the self to be kept 'pure'. The abject is, however, a confirmation of the fact that the subject can only be conceived of as a heterogeneous construction that is always already contaminated. Bodily fluids mark a separation between inner and outer world, which is why the body acquires a fragile contour through disgust. The problem, however, is that the self is expelled in the same process.’(p104,105)
Pleasure and displeasure linked to the abject….conflicting responses? Maybe eg squeezing a spot, having a big poo, selfharming? (p104)
Kristeva’s ‘aesthetics of contamination’ – ‘breaking down between inside and outside’, but also being ‘moved and touched’ by the other. A paradox? Significance of physical touch? (p 104)
‘Is this the reason why we also see a new interest for that which has no shape or form but which can still be related to the object of a human other, phenomena such as blood, guts, bodily fluids?’ This makes me think of Bataille’s form and formlessness… and my knitting, unravelling…
‘The other’ in art - ‘that the other encountered in a work of art may have an infectious function… art and literature catches the 'beyond' of fantasy.’ (p105) Art, infection and what is the ‘beyond of fantasy’?
Contamination and catharis – a question of balance, purification. ‘Art replace religion as the unravelling of expulsion’ (p105) It links the individual and the community, self and other, as does my work.
‘there is no substantial difference between the experiences of expulsion at an individual level and those of the community. In the sphere of tragedy, concepts such as miasma and catharsis cut across individual and political bodies. The powerful concept of abjection does the same with contemporary art.’ (p 105)
This makes links between the individual and the political and the ways that abjection can cut across contemporary art.
Also, she compares Kristeva’s abjection with Bataille’s formlessness – abjection is linked to ‘a secret desire to erase borders’ yet ‘contamination must be avoided’ Another tension, yet also linked to ‘a new knowledge’, a ‘motor of social transformation’ and ‘the production of a transfomative inner experience’. Negatives and positives, inside and out, borders erased, blurring of boundaries.
Interesting that she also regards abjection as transformative. Is it about knowing one’s Self, or about knowing where the borders are between self and other? Self knowledge? Individuation?
‘The realisation of what Bataille calls inner experience puts the object in question and produces a new kind of knowledge, not an object. Such experience cannot be theorised in the same terms as a material object. The abject is not simply something that is outside of us, and that we are disgusted by. In being neither 'subject nor object' it seems, first of all, to threaten the borders of the self.’ (p105)
Neither ‘object nor subject’, the abject threatens the ‘borders of the self’. The space/border/boundary/limen/threshold between self and other. It reminds me of the divide between private and public:
In discussing Habermas’ public spheres, Crossman states, ‘the boundary between the public and private sphere is not fixed; instead, it is flexible and permeable, and is always fluctuating and evolving’ (2019). Does this mean that the abject boundary between self and other is also not fixed, ‘flexible and permeable’… ‘always fluctuating and evolving’? A curious thought.
More links between the body, abjection and the self:
‘Abjection is exclusion or rejection rather than denial or denegation, which means that it is not detached from the body at a symbolic level… corporeal rejection marks a differentiation between inner and outer world, the body of the self creating its contours, the abject being a remainder that has to be cut off in order for the self to be kept 'pure'’ (p105).
Separation again - the abject has to be ‘cut off’ for the self to be kept pure’
Links between form and formlessness and Bataille p105
Racism, and xenophobia as forms of abjection, nationalism and religion as c.a. p106
Crossman, A. (2019) Understanding Private and Public Spheres Available at: https://www.thoughtco.com/private-and-public-spheres-3026464 (Accessed 25 March 2020)
Felluga, D. (2011) ‘Modules on Kristeva: On the Abject’ in Introductory Guide to Critical Theory Available at: https://cla.purdue.edu/academic/english/theory/psychoanalysis/kristevaabject.html (Accessed 5 May 2020)
Sjoholm, C. (2005) Kristeva and the political Available at: file:///C:/Users/TEMP/Downloads/1005927.pdf (Accessed 5 May 2020)