We tend to treat beliefs as simple reflections of reality, yet power often proves to be the measure of truth.

Julia Kristeva often references Fyodor Dostoyevsky in her work. She read him while growing up in Bulgaria, and continued after her move to France. She recalls her initial reading was against her father’s directive. As well as Dostoyevsky’s famous novels, … Continue reading →

Some books bought new or second-hand recently, including some for ‘Sunday History’ posts; the first two volumes of the Arden Shakespeare fourth series; and Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm, The Genealogy of Genealogy: Nietzsche, Foucault and the Coils of Critical History, … Continue reading →

John K. Simon, Modern French Criticism; Maria-Antoinetta Macciocchi, Les femmes et leurs maîtres; Laura Spinney, Proto; Julia Kristeva, Dostoyevsky in the Face of Death; a special issue on Jean Leray; Ryan L. Allen, Adventures in the Archaic and J.P. Mallory, … Continue reading →

Tel Quel famously went to China in 1974. Tel Quel was an important literary journal founded in 1960, to which many of the major names of ‘French theory’ contributed, including Michel Foucault, Maurice Blanchot and Jacques Derrida. The journal was edited by Philippe Sollers, who along with Julia Kristeva, Roland Barthes, Marcelin Pleynet and the Éditions du Seuil … … Continue reading →

As I said in the last update, I went to the EUI in Florence at the beginning of February with a nearly complete draft of my manuscript on Indo-European Thought in Twentieth-Century France, and had the plan to leave at the … Continue reading →

Julia Kristeva’s first novel The Samurai was published in 1990. It’s not the greatest novel, but it’s well known that the book is a thinly disguised autobiography, with the central character Olga Morena modelled on herself. Many of the famous names of … Continue reading →

The draft of the Mapping Indo-European Thought manuscript is slowly coming together. I’ve just begun a Fernand Braudel fellowship at the European University Institute in Florence. My plan was to come here with a complete draft, and to leave with a better … Continue reading →