The Linguistic Turn and Beyond (2010-2011) Evelien Geerts (Research Master Gender and Ethnicity,

student number 3615170) (total amount of words (heading, footnotes and bibliography excluded): 6387)

Julia Kristevas subversive semiotic politics.

A conceptual analysis of Kristevas notions of the semiotic chora,

maternity and feminism.

Introduction. Kristevas semiotic politics: limited, non-subversive and anti-

feminist?

Despite her critique on Lacan, however, Kristevas strategy of subversion proves doubtful. Her
theory appears to depend upon the stability and reproduction of precisely the paternal law that she
sought to displace.
(Butler, The Body Politics of Julia Kristeva, p. 104)

The Bulgarian-French poststructuralist and psychoanalytical philosopher Julia Kristeva

(1941) has been continuously exploring the locations of marginality, instability, and
repression1 throughout her complex, yet fascinating oeuvre. As a poststructuralist, she has
criticized the traditional theories of semiotics, as found in the philosophies of for instance
Ferdinand de Saussure and Noam Chomsky, and she even went so far to state that no form of
semiotics [] can exist other than as a critique of semiotics2. Kristevas own revised theory
of semiotics, also called semanalysis (as developed in Revolution in Poetic Language
(1984/1974) and Desire in Language (1980)), not only attacks the Husserlian transcendental
ego, which is a key concept in classic semiotics, but also makes use of Freudian and Lacanian
psychoanalysis, in order to show that there is a dynamic speaking subject operating behind the
signifying processes; processes that are also strongly influenced by the subjects
unconsciousness. Kristevas philosophy thus appears to be highly innovative, critical and
subversive, or as Rosalind Coward and John Ellis have stated it so nicely:

Kristevas work is moving towards a theory of revolution as well as being a revolutionary theory.3

1
K. Ives, Love, Abjection, Melancholy, Art, Love. Julia Kristevas Philosophy, in: K. Ives, Cixous, Irigaray,
Kristeva. The Jouissance of French Feminism, Kent: Crescent Moon, 2007, p. 105.
2
J. Kristeva, Semiotics. A Critical Science and/or a Critique of Science, translated by S. Hand, in: T. Moi
(ed.), The Kristeva Reader, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1986, p. 78 (hereafter: Moi, The Kristeva Reader).
3
R. Coward J. Ellis, The Philosophical Context, in: R. Coward J. Ellis, Language and Materialism.
Developments in Semiology and the Theory of the Subject, Boston London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977, p.
9.

1
 But the reactionary potential of her theories has often been downplayed and even
denied by her (mostly feminist) critics, since Kristevas stance on the French movements of
lcriture fminine and difference feminism, and political feminism in general, hasnt been
exactly positive. Kristeva isnt really fond of political feminisms, and has actually called them
the last of the power-seeking ideologies4; secondly, her relationship with the French
feminist projects presented above is quite ambiguous as well: it is clear that Kristeva isnt
keen on equality feminism, but she also has criticized the French sexual difference thinkers
for being essentialists, since they have dared to proclaim that there is such a thing as female
specificity.5 Because of her ambivalent views on feminism, one could thus question the
relevance of Kristevas theories for feminist philosophy and theory, and this is exactly what
some of her critics have done. Renowned thinkers such as Ann Rosalind Jones, Elizabeth
Grosz and Judith Butler have attacked Kristevas semiotic politics (in which the semiotic
chora plays an important role, as we will see later on in this paper) for not being subversive
enough, evaluated from a feminist perspective.6 This introduction will touch upon each of
these rather harsh critiques, in order to sketch out the main leitmotifs of this paper, which will
be related to the questions of subversiveness and ambiguity.
To begin with Jones evaluation: according to her, Kristevas theory is lacking
something: Kristevas semiotic politics are rather limited, even though she wished to
discover sites of resistance to the Symbolic7 by emphasizing the interaction between the
symbolic and the semiotic. Since Jones considers Kristeva to be an anti-feminist, who sees
feminism as a negative practice8, and who, because of her anti-feminism, does not attribute
any specificity to women, Kristevas politics rather reinforces a long-term, mainstream

4
J. Kristeva, Powers of Horror. An Essay on Abjection, translated by L. S. Roudiez, New York: Columbia
University Press, 1982, p. 208. As quoted in N. McAfee, Julia Kristeva, New York London: Routledge, 2004,
Routledge Critical Thinkers Series, p. 75 (hereafter: McAfee, Julia Kristeva).
5
Kristevas ambiguous relationship with feminism will be analyzed in detail in this paper starting from p. 15.
What is immediately clear however is that Kristeva is very much opposed to essentialism. This can be seen in
Womens Time, where she said the following by referring to Jacques Lacans famous statement: There is no
such thing as Woman. Indeed, she does not exist with a capital W, possessor of some mythical unity a
supreme power, on which is based the terror of power and terrorism as the desire for power. See J. Kristeva,
Womens Time, in: Moi, The Kristeva Reader, p. 205 (hereafter: Kristeva, Womens Time).
6
The articles and chapters that will be discussed here are the following: A. R. Jones, Julia Kristeva on
Femininity. The Limits of a Semiotic Politics, Feminist Review 18 (1984) Winter, p. 56-73 (hereafter: Jones,
Julia Kristeva on Femininity). J. Butler, The Body Politics of Julia Kristeva, Hypatia 3 (1989) 3, p. 104-118
(hereafter: Butler, The Body Politics of Julia Kristeva). E. Grosz, Julia Kristeva and the speaking subject,
in: E. Grosz, Sexual Subversions. Three French Feminists, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1989, p. 39-69 (hereafter:
Grosz, Julia Kristeva and the speaking subject and Grosz, Sexual Subversions) and E. Grosz, Julia Kristeva.
Abjection, motherhood and love, in: Ibid., p. 70-99 (hereafter: Grosz, Julia Kristeva).
7
Jones, Julia Kristeva on Femininity, p. 58-59.
8
J. Kristeva, Women can never be defined, translated by M. August, in: E. Marks I. de Courtivron (eds.),
New French Feminism, Brighton: Harvester, 1981 p. 137. As quoted in Jones, Julia Kristeva on Femininity, p.
62.

2
tendency in Western thought to exclude women, [] from cultural centrality []9, instead
of liberating them. Jones thus accuses Kristeva of playing along with phallogocentrism10,
since she doesnt seem to have a non-phallogocentric conceptualization of femininity, but
rather appears to be describing women as phallic mothers, and thus is thereby guilty of
reducing women to the phallogocentric horrors of biological essentialism and determinism.
Jones summarizes her evaluation of Kristeva in the following tendentious one-liner:

Kristeva still believes that men create the world of power and representation; women create babies.11
From Jones feminist-political point of view then, Kristevas semiotic politics seem to
be lacking a conceptualization of femininity12, and she even is considered to be a
phallogocentrist in disguise by having constructed motherhood as a womans duty13. The
question of course here is whether Jones is right in calling Kristevas project anti-feminist. I
would argue that she is not, and this has everything to do with the fact that Jones is first of all
working with a very partial Anglo-American conceptualization of feminism (i.e. feminism as
an emancipatory, political project) herself, and secondly, Jones appears to be unable to
comprehend the ambiguities and nuances that are central to Kristevas opaque texts. Jones
immediately links Kristevas own rejection of mass feminism to the feminist failing of her
theories, and this might not be the right move to make. In contrast to Jones position14, this

9
Jones, Julia Kristeva on Femininity, p. 62.
10
Butler and Grosz will also state this, but I will argue that their critique is superior to Jones, since they really
tackle Kristeva via a theoretical analysis, instead of just evaluating her via an Anglo-American political
conceptualization of feminism. Butlers and Grosz critiques of course also have political implications.
11
Jones, Julia Kristeva on Femininity, p. 63.
12
Grosz shares Jones critique here and has stated the following: Her [i.e. Kristevas] position is unclear in
feminist terms mainly because of the absence of women from her central concerns. See Grosz, Julia Kristeva
and the speaking subject, p. 63. Later Grosz agrees with Jones critique even more when stating that her [i.e.
Kristevas] political disengagement from feminist struggles and issues can readily be interpreted as antifeminism
[sic] rather than non-feminism. See Grosz, Julia Kristeva, p. 93.
13
Ibid., p. 62.
14
As stated above, one could argue that Jones appears to be evaluating Kristevas theories on a superficial level.
It is true that Kristeva doesnt engage that much in an analysis of femininity an sich, but in Stabat Mater for
instance, Kristeva does elaborate on femininity and motherhood, and really tries to alter the Christian
representation of women as virgin mothers. And this act of deconstructing a certain stereotypical discourse on
women could easily be seen as subversive, and feminist, since it goes against a certain phallogocentric definition
of women. See J. Kristeva, Stabat Mater, in: Moi, The Kristeva Reader, p. 160-186 (hereafter: Kristeva,
Stabat Mater). A full analysis of Stabat Mater will be presented in this paper, starting from p. 10. Secondly, I
have the feeling that Jones is making a lot of mistakes when it comes to assessing Kristevas oeuvre in her article
Julia Kristeva on Femininity. For instance, Jones sees the relationship between the symbolic and semiotic as
an adversary (Ibid., p. 59) one, which is surely an overstatement. Stating that Kristeva sees motherhood as a
womans duty (Ibid., p. 62) might be even worse, and accusing her of anti-feminism (Ibid., p. 58) really goes
too far. Jones reads Kristeva in a very unsophisticated manner, and this has everything to do with her Anglo-
American feminist perspective, I think, which isnt intrinsically problematic, but quite reductive when used as a
tool to analyze French philosophy. This reductive approach can also be found in another article written by Jones,
titled Writing the Body. Toward an Understanding of lcriture Fminine, where she first of all labels
Kristeva with the term criture feminine (a maneuver that can already be questioned), and secondly Jones there
uncritically attacks lcriture fminine as a theory of concentrism (A. R. Jones, Writing the Body. Toward

3
paper will try to evaluate Kristevas semiotic politics by looking at the complex ambiguities
and ambivalences that arise when it comes to Kristevas conceptualization of the semiotic
chora, maternity, and feminism. But in order to engage in these leitmotifs, the research
question of this paper needs to be tackled first. And this can be done by analyzing Butlers
(and also Grosz) evaluation of Kristeva.
Contrary to Jones, Butler has detected a possible feminist deficiency in Kristevas
theoretical framework, which makes her critique more persuasive, in my opinion, since she
really works from within Kristevas theory, instead of only attacking her on a political basis.
In her densely constructed article The Body Politics of Julia Kristeva, Butler seems to be
making three intriguing claims about Kristevas semiotic theory: she first of all challenges the
idea that Kristevas semiotic acts as a feminine locus of subversion of the paternal law15.
Although the concept of the semiotic appears to be disrupting the (Lacanian) Symbolic, it
isnt subversive and destabilizing enough, according to Butler, since it in the end is
invariably subordinate to the symbolic16. Secondly, since Kristeva relates the semiotic to
the maternal body, and to a pre-cultural essence, her theory becomes even more
problematic. Maternity hence appears to be an essentially pre-cultural reality17, and this
reeks of an anti-feminist naturalization of the feminine, and of biological determinism. And
thirdly, Butler claims that Kristeva isnt able to theorize female homosexuality properly, since
Kristeva only sees it as a culturally unintelligible practice18, rooted in psychosis. And this
deficiency makes her theory fall back into the traditional Freudian view on female
homosexuality (i.e. women who are acting as men, and who are therefore deviant in not
following the path towards female normality; a path that would guide them towards phallic
motherhood).19
Butlers last critique sounds very convincing, but the two previous ones should be
nuanced, or so I will argue in this paper. Butler might be going a bit too far by first of all

an Understanding of Lcriture Fminine, Feminist Studies 17 (1981) 2, p. 261) that naively puts female
specificity forward as the solution to phallogocentrism. Instead of reading the texts of lcriture fminine in a
nuanced way, Jones criticizes the movement for being idealist and essentialist, and she makes these
objections so that American women are to sift out and use the positive elements in French thinking about
feminit (Jones, Writing the Body, p. 252-253). Jones appears to be Americanizing French theories, and
loses the nuanced, complex ambiguities that are at work in the oeuvres of for instance Luce Irigaray and Julia
Kristeva. This reductive approach is surely not the one that I would like to employ in this paper!
15
Butler, The Body Politics of Julia Kristeva, p. 104.
16
Ibid., p. 105.
17
Ibid., p. 106.
18
Ibid., p. 111.
19
This critique is also uttered by Grosz: In psychoanalysis, lesbian desire cannot be conceived of except as an
imitation of masculinity; Kristevas position implicitly confirms this without presenting any criticisms or
developing a distance from it. See Grosz, Julia Kristeva, p. 93.

4
arguing that Kristeva offers us a strategy of subversion that can never become a sustained
political practice20, and secondly by suggesting that Kristeva thus in fact relapses into an
anti-feminist phallogocentrism, instead of taking on that system of thought in a feminist
manner by thwarting it. That is why this paper will engage itself in the debate whether
Kristevas semiotic politics are subversive and disruptive enough, in order to undermine
phallogocentrism. In order to tackle Butlers well-argued, yet not completely persuasive
critiques of the non-subversiveness and the dangerous naturalization of the maternal body by
linking it to the pre-cultural semiotic chora, this paper will first of all sketch out what this
semiotic chora exactly means and entails to, and secondly, an analysis of Kristevas views on
motherhood and feminism will be presented as well, in order to fully grasp Kristevas
ambiguous philosophy.

1. A conceptual analysis of Julia Kristevas Revolution in Poetic Language,

Stabat Mater, and Womens Time. An abundance of ambiguities and
ambivalences.

Next to finding an answer to the question whether Kristevas semiotic politics are subversive
or not, evaluated from a feminist perspective, this paper will engage in theorizing the
complexity of ambiguities that are at work in Kristevas oeuvre. This thread of theoretical
ambivalence runs through all of Kristevas texts, and it is this equivocalness that will act as a
leading motif in order to group the following three sections of this paper together.
In a first section, the concept of the chora will be investigated, so as to see whether it
is something essentially pre-cultural, as Butler has stated it, or if Kristeva is actually trying to
deconstruct the binary between nature and culture, via emphasizing the interaction between
the semiotic and the symbolic. Secondly, an analysis of Kristevas maternalization of the
semiotic chora will be presented as well, and it will be investigated whether she is
naturalizing the maternal via this conceptualization, or not. In a second section, I will tackle
Butlers critiques again through arguing that Kristeva is in fact trying to create another, non-
phallogocentric discourse on maternity. In the third and last section of this paper, I will finally
deal with the greatest ambiguity of all in Kristevas oeuvre, namely her attitude towards
feminism and here I will declare that there is definitely something subversive and feminist
about Kristevas project. But in order to come to that conclusion, a conceptual analysis of
Kristevas semiotic chora has to be drawn out first.

20
Butler, The Body Politics of Julia Kristeva, p. 106.

5
 1.1. Kristevas psychoanalytical semiotics. The disruptive force of the (maternal)
semiotic chora.

The chora is not yet a position that represents something for someone (i.e., it is not a sign); nor is it a
position that represents someone for another position (i.e., it is not yet a signifier either); it is,
however, generated in order to attain to this signifying position.
(Kristeva, Revolution in Poetic Language, p. 94)

Since Kristeva in Revolution in Poetic Language is looking for another model of

subjectivity21, that would take the Freudian positing of the unconscious22 into account, she
pays special attention to the extra linguistic [sic]23 in her semanalysis. With this
psychoanalytical semiotic theory, Kristeva wants to emphasize the idea that signification
doesnt only consist out of the intentional act of a subject that is consciously attributing signs
to objects, but that there are also unconscious elements at work in the sign system that exceed,
or at times even disrupt, signification. This makes her semanalysis into an analysis of the
remainder or residue left over in sign systems []24, namely the semiotic.
Although the semiotic can be seen as a pre-discursive distinctive mark, trace, index,
precursory sign []25, it functions as some sort of a material order26, as drives27 or
energy charges28 within discourse. Meaning can only be produced, according to Kristeva,
when the semiotic meets the symbolic29, and they seem to interact in an almost dialectical, yet
intertwined manner. They necessarily co-operate in producing meaning:

21
Kristeva has a very specific conceptualization of subjectivity. She namely sees the subject as a subject in
process/on trial (J. Kristeva, Revolution in Poetic Language, in: Moi, The Kristeva Reader, p. 91. Hereafter:
Kristeva, Revolution in Poetic Language). (Revolution is of course normally a book, but since I will only refer
here to Revolution as presented in The Kristeva Reader, I will refer to it as an article, when using quotes). This
concept of subjectivity is totally different from the traditional Cartesian cogito, or an autonomous, conscious
subject. The subject for Kristeva is always a subject-in-process; which means that there are always semiotic
disruptive drives at work in the subject that have destabilizing effects. For more information on Kristevas
conceptualization of subjectivity, see McAfee, Julia Kristeva, p. 37-42. This paper will also refer to Kristevas
subject-in-process, when analyzing her ideas on maternity, starting from p. 10.
22
Kristeva, Revolution in Poetic Language, p. 98.
23
Ibid., p. 90.
24
Grosz, Julia Kristeva, p. 61.
25
Kristeva, Revolution in Poetic Language, p. 93.
26
Grosz, Julia Kristeva, p. 43.
27
Kristeva, Revolution in Poetic Language, p. 93.
28
Loc. cit.
29
Its very unclear whether Kristeva in her texts refers to the Lacanian Symbolic, as it has been developed in
Jacques Lacans psychoanalysis, namely as a the objective order of language, law, morality, and social existence
that constitutes ones subjectivity, where the phallus is the signifier of signifiers; or as the symbolic element in
the Symbolic. In my opinion, Kristeva more or less seems to be stating that there are two elements at work in the
Symbolic domain, namely the semiotic and the symbolic, i.e. the element in signification that does not signify,
and the element in signification that does. I will engage in these two different notions of the S/symbolic in my
paper. A similar argument can be found in K. Oliver, Julia Kristevas Feminist Revolutions, Hypatia 8 (1993)
3, p. 101. In my opinion, the major difference between Lacan and Kristeva has to be located in Kristevas
emphasis on the fact that the semiotic always acts out as an element of disruption in signification, and is thus
always operating inside the Symbolic, next to the symbolic.

6
Because the subject is always both semiotic and symbolic, no signifying system he produces can be
either exclusively semiotic or exclusively symbolic, and is instead necessarily marked by an
indebtness to both.30
Both elements are needed, since language, without the symbolic, would only exist out
of non-coherent blabbering; and without the element of the semiotic on the other hand,
language would become existentially meaningless. Next to the intertwining of the semiotic
and the symbolic, there is a third concept at work in Kristevas psychoanalytical semiotics,
and that is the thetic. The thetic functions as a unifier of the semiotic and the symbolic, and
this unification takes place in two specific moments of the development of the subject, namely
the mirror phase and the acceptance of castration within the Oedipus complex, as made
famous in Lacanian psychoanalysis.31 In order to make a long and complex story short, the
thetic, according to Kristeva, is the precondition of signification32, and it structures (and by
doing so basically represses) the semiotic drives by molding them into symbolically
amenable forms33. The semiotic and the symbolic hence become intertwined, and coherent
meaning (and also subjectivity) is produced.
The most intriguing (and ambiguous) part of Kristevas theory however has to be
located in the fact that she links the semiotic heterogeneity of the drives with the concept of
the chora. Two investigations need to be made here: the function of the chora needs to be
analyzed, and secondly, since Kristeva explicitly refers to Platos chora concept34 that carries
the connotation of being both nourishing and maternal35, one has to take a look at the
maternal, possibly subversive and supposedly natural connotations of the semiotic chora.
For starters, the function of the semiotic chora is explained in Kristevas following
statement:

30
Kristeva, Revolution in Poetic Language, p. 93.
31
See Ibid. from p. 98-105 for a more detailed analysis of the notions of the thetic, and the Lacanian mirror
phase and Oedipal complex.
32
Ibid., p. 102.
33
Grosz, Julia Kristeva, p. 45.
34
A lot has been written about Platos chora. In his Timaeus, Plato describes the chora as a third term that
mediates the binary between the world of Becoming and the realm of Being (or Platos world of Ideas). The
chora appears to be somewhere in between materiality and intelligibility: [] We shall not be wrong if we
describe it as invisible and formless, all-embracing, possessed in a most puzzling way of intelligibility, yet very
hard to grasp. (See Plato, Timaeus and Critias, translated by Sir H. D. P. Lee, New York: Penguin, 1977, p. 70
(Plato, Tim. 51a-b)). Kristevas chora could be seen as equally mediating, in my opinion, and even more
interesting is the fact that she didnt just invent the maternal function of the chora, but that is already present in
Platos own text. Plato sees the chora as a womb or a nurse, since it provides a position for everything that
comes to be []. (See Ibid., p. 71 (Plato, Tim., 52b)). More information on the importance of the chora in the
philosophies of Plato, Derrida, Irigaray and Kristeva can be found in E. Bianchi, Receptacle/Chora. Figuring
the Errant Feminine in Platos Timaeus, Hypatia 21 (2006) 4, p. 124-146 (hereafter: Bianchi,
Receptacle/Chora).
35
Kristeva, Revolution in Poetic Language, p. 94.

7
The chora is a modality of significance in which the linguistic sign is not yet articulated as the
absence of an object and as the distinction between real and symbolic.36
The chora thus is a rhythmic space37 that groups the semiotic drives together in a non-
expressive totality38; it is a constantly moving rhythm that precedes linguistic signification,
while having the power to strike back from its repressed space within the Symbolic domain.
Interesting is that Kristeva links the concept of the semiotic chora to the maternal, and
thus to the mothers body. She considers the latter to be the ordering principle of the semiotic
chora39, and this has everything to do with Kristevas psychoanalytical theory of infantile
development. In the pre-Oedipal phase of development, to be exact, the child is overwhelmed
by these uncontrollable semiotic drives that are simultaneously assimilating and
destructive40; these drives (and the death drive in particular) could endanger the child, if it
were not for its still symbiotic relationship with the maternal body. At first the child is
completely absorbed in this chora, and utters nonsensical cries and sounds, until it enters the
Symbolic realm, where the semiotic chora is suppressed, as we have already seen. The chora
nonetheless is always operating in the shadows of the symbolic (in the Symbolic), and
sometimes finds its way out of its situation of repression, and hence causes disruption within
discourse.
But before we end this section on the semiotic chora by anticipating on its
subversiveness, we still have to tackle Butlers critique on Kristevas so-called relapse into
biological essentialism. Butler is right when arguing that if the maternal semiotic chora were
to be a pre-discursive (and thus pre-symbolic and pre-cultural) entity, Kristeva would seem to
be defending the notion of culture as a paternal structure and [] maternity as an essentiality
pre-cultural reality41. But, as we know by now, Kristeva in fact stresses the indispensable
interaction between the semiotic and the symbolic elements, which makes it hard to believe
that she really is banishing the maternal chora (and thus the maternal body as well) to nature,
and thus completely locating it outside language and culture. Something much more
ambiguous seems to be going on here42: first of all, although Kristeva speaks about the extra-

36
Kristeva, Revolution in Poetic Language, p. 94.
37
Loc. cit.
38
Ibid., p. 93.
39
Ibid., p. 95.
40
Loc. cit.
41
Butler, The Body Politics of Julia Kristeva, p. 106.
42
The following two arguments are discussed in E. Ziarek, At the Limits of Discourse. Heterogeneity, Alterity,
and the Maternal Body in Kristevas Thought, Hypatia 7 (1992) 2, starting from p. 94-96 (hereafter: Ziarek, At
the Limits of Discourse). I paraphrase these arguments here, while using them against Butlers main
argumentation in her article The Body Politics of Julia Kristeva.

8
linguistic43, the semiotic chora appears to be something partially cultural as well, since it is
regulating all these heterogeneous drives, or as Kristeva has put it; [these drives] are
arranged according to the various constraints imposed on this body always already involved
in a semiotic process by family and social structures.44 Secondly, what if Kristevas
emphasis on the pre-discursivity of the maternal semiotic chora were to be seen as a strategic
move, in order to show that traditional semiotics is lacking an important element in its rigid
system of signification?45 This second argument sounds very convincing, and this strategy
would enable Kristeva to stay out of the traps of biological essentialism, while altering
phallogocentrism from the inside out. If this were to be the case (and Id like to claim so),
then the maternal semiotic chora isnt a naturalized phallogocentric concept that links
motherhood solely to the natural; it should rather be perceived as a multi-layered notion that
could distort and disrupt discourse from within. And this is exactly what Kristeva seems to be
claiming herself: the chora carries the connotation of subversiveness within itself, and this
disruption of meaning becomes manifest in poetry and in maternity as well:

The speaker reaches this limit (of the symbolic)only by virtue of a particular, discursive practice
called art. A woman also attains itthrough the strange form of split symbolization (threshold of
language and instinctual drive, of the symbolic and the semiotic) of which the act of giving birth
consists.46
The subversion that takes place in poetic language will be put aside here, but, in order
to convince us even more of the fact that Kristevas maternal semiotic chora isnt
phallogocentric, but employed strategically, an analysis of Kristevas Stabat Mater essay will
be presented in the next section. This essay should provide us with enough evidence to

43
Probably with the connotation of the extra-linguistic residues within language (and not outside language).
44
Kristeva, Revolution in Poetic Language, p. 93
45
This idea of strategically employing the semiotic chora as a maternal essence in order to deconstruct
phallogocentrism which works with these kind of essentialist, stereotypical notions of femininity, isnt farfetched
at all. In Ziareks article, At the Limits of Discourse, this issue is defended on p. 94. Interesting is that
Margaroni also sees the chora as a strategic means to deconstruct (phal)logocentrism; according to her,
Kristevas chora has the radical potential of deconstructing the logos as origin behind the logocentric system
of thought. See M. Margaroni, The Lost Foundation. Kristevas Semiotic Chora and Its Ambiguous Legacy,
Hypatia 20 (2005) 1, p. 87. The rest of Margaronis article is devoted to a Deleuzian interpretation of Kristevas
chora, which will not be presented here. And thirdly, this kind of strategic essentialism isnt so strange in French
feminist philosophy. For instance, Luce Irigaray has also re-appropriated certain seemingly essentialist-
phallogocentric notions of the feminine (i.e. the two lips in This sex, and the hysterical-mimetic woman in
Speculum, an image that Irigaray at the same time has used as a source for her own hysterical, productive
mimetical reading strategy) in order to deconstruct phallogocentric discourse from within. See L. Irigaray,
Speculum of the other woman, translated by Gilligan C. Gill, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985 (hereafter:
Irigaray, Speculum) and L. Irigaray, This sex which is not one, translated by Catherine Porter with Carolyn
Burke, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985 (hereafter: Irigaray, This sex which is not one). For extra
information on Irigarays strategic essentialism, see for instance D. J. Fuss, Essentially Speaking. Luce
Irigarays Language of Essence, Hypatia 3 (1989) 3, p. 62-80.
46
J. Kristeva, Desire in language. A semiotic approach to literature and art, edited by L. S. Roudiez, translated
by T. Gora, A. Jardine, and L. S. Roudiez, New York: Columbia University Press, 1980, p. 240-241. As quoted
in Ziarek, At the Limits of Discourse, p. 97.

9
understand that Kristeva isnt really playing along with phallogocentrism, but rather is
opposed to it.

1.2. Kristevas views on maternity and alterity in Stabat Mater.

If it is not possible to say of a woman what she is (without running the risk of abolishing her
difference), would it perhaps be different concerning the mother, since that is the only function of the
other sex to which we can definitively attribute existence?
(Kristeva, Stabat Mater, p. 161)

Kristevas critics have stated that the notions of women and femininity arent properly
theorized or even not represented at all in Kristevas oeuvre, and theyre not completely
wrong, since Kristeva herself, as can be seen in the above quote taken from Stabat Mater, is
more keen on theorizing maternity. This is pretty remarkable, certainly from a feminist point
of view: at first, one might think that Kristeva as a result is conflating femininity with
motherhood, and thus is uncritically re-appropriating the standard phallogocentric idea that
women only exist as mothers (of sons). But this, I argue, is not the case. If we take her
strategic employment of the semiotic chora as maternal into account, it becomes clear that
Kristeva is trying to deconstruct the phallogocentric reductive representation of women-as-
phallic-mothers.47 She engages in this deconstruction in Stabat Mater by simultaneously
analyzing the Christian Western discourse on the Virgin Mary the paradigm of the virginal,
phallic mother; and by writing her own maternal poetry. The following section will give an
outline of Stabat Mater, in order to prove Butler wrong once again, by showing that
Kristeva is critically preoccupied with an anti-phallogocentric representation of motherhood.48
In Stabat Mater, Kristeva analyzes the discourse of Christianity on motherhood,
motivated by two reasons: she first of all doesnt want to do away with maternity, like many
avant-garde feminist groups49 wished to do, since the maternal body (which, as we know, is
linked to the chora) for her, as we will see later on in this section, has a specific and
immediate access to alterity, and also portrays a very specific kind of subjectivity. Secondly,
Kristeva wants to alter the phallogocentric misrepresentation of women as mothers in the
discourse of Christianity, since it is lacking, and in fact repressing, something. Although

47
This is my own interpretation of Kristevas analysis of the discourse of Christianity. Although Toril Moi (see
Moi, The Kristeva Reader, p. 160) has argued that Kristeva in Stabat Mater is more or less appreciative of
Christian discourse with its Virgin Mary cult, since this cult was a kind of coping strategy against female
paranoia; I have the feeling that Kristeva is also criticizing the representation of mothers in this discourse in
Stabat Mater. And I will here thus rather focus on her critiques and her own representation of motherhood.
48
Which she would not be able to do, if her concept of the maternal semiotic chora were not subversive enough!
49
Kristeva, Stabat Mater, p. 161. Kristeva implicitly seems to be referring to Simone de Beauvoir here, who
wasnt exactly keen on motherhood and wanted to liberate women from it.

10
Christianity is doubtless the most refined symbolic construct in which femininity [] is
focused on Maternality50, it is thereby not only reducing the feminine, but also
misrepresenting the maternal, according to Kristeva. Arisen out of primary narcissism51 and
sublimation52, this reduction of the feminine in Christian discourse is particularly noticeable
in the figure of the Virgin Mary53 who was considered to be the daughter-wife-mother54 of
Christ, and thus could be seen as fulfilling the three traditional patriarchic roles ascribed to
women. In addition to that, Mary seems to be subjected to phallogocentrisms favorite way of
coping with alterity, namely reductive symmetry thinking: the figure of Christ is taken as a
paradigm in this discourse, and since he is immortal and without sin, his mother had to
become free of sin and death as well.55 Therefore, Mary was depicted as an immortal, virginal
mother, and was thus equally spiritualized and made sacred. But Marys bodily materiality;
her physicality as a woman, and specifically as a mother, was blatantly disregarded and
obscured in this process of spiritualization.56 Moreover, Mary at the same time also had to
stand for excessive, maternal love: her maternal body was seen as a primal shelter57, and by
immortalizing and de-materializing it, the masculine subject operating behind Christian
discourse was able to cope with his own fear of death.
In the end, Kristeva seems to be pinpointing to the fact that the Virgin Mary was
constructed as a paradigm of an exacerbated masochism58: she had to give everything away,
including her own bodily being, in order to become the mother of Christ and enter the realm
of transcendence. Christianity thus has created a discourse in which women had to live up to

50
Kristeva, Stabat Mater, p. 161.
51
Ibid., p. 163.
52
Loc. cit.
53
Julia Kristeva isnt alone in analyzing the Virgin Mary, Luce Irigaray has engaged in a similar analysis in her
book Marine Lover of Friedrich Nietzsche (See L. Irigaray, Marine Lover of Friedrich Nietzsche, translated by
G. C. Gill, New York: Columbia University Press, 1991, 190 p.). One can find a comparative analysis of
Kristevas and Irigarays conceptualization of the Virgin Mary in E. Summers-Bremner, Hysterical Visions.
Kristeva and Irigaray on the Virgin Mary, Women. A Cultural Review 9 (1998) 2, p. 178-199. Summer-Bremner
argues in this article that both Kristeva and Irigaray will read Virgin Mary in a hysterical way, in order to come
to their specific conceptualizations of motherhood. Both Kristeva and Irigaray see the Virgin as a symptomatic
site of western societys unease with the maternal origin, an origin articulated in culture if only in terms of its
displacement (Ibid., p. 180) and hence want to engage in a revaluation of motherhood through a hysterical
reading strategy. Although Summer-Bremner gives an excellent comparative analysis of both Irigarays and
Kristevas re-reading of Christian discourse, I do not completely agree with her when she labels Kristevas
reading and writing strategy as hysterical. In Irigarays case, one could indeed speak of a hysterical discourse,
since Irigaray sees hysteria as something potentially subversive and proto-feminist, but Im not sure whether
Kristeva goes this far. Id rather label her strategy as semiotical-disruptive, instead of hysterical.
54
Kristeva, Stabat Mater, p. 169.
55
See Ibid., p. 164 for this idea.
56
The only non-verbal, semiotic signs of the Mothers material, bodily existence that are present in this Christian
discourse seem to be her tears and milk (Ibid., p. 174). These signs could be seen as disruptively representing
maternal pain and jouissance, but they are never fully touched upon in Christian discourse.
57
Ibid., p. 176
58
Ibid., p. 181.

11
this extreme idealization of maternity; they had to engage in complete self-sacrifice59, in
order to support masculine subjectivity, and by doing so, they ended up losing their material
subjectivity. This extremely problematic representation of women that promotes feminine
masochism60, is labeled with the term feminine perversion61 by Kristeva. And it is this
repression of the mothers body, combined with the sole focus on her masochism that
Kristeva wants to see altered; she wants to come to another, more appreciative, even feminist-
like analysis of motherhood.
Interesting is that this new mode of representation cannot be found in either
declaim[ing] against the reactionary role of mothers in the service of male dominating
power62, as some feminists have done, nor in traditional Freudian psychoanalysis that has
provided us with a massive nothing63 when it came to maternity. Kristeva herself subtly
goes against these two reductive approaches, by poetically describing her own experiences of
pregnancy and motherhood. This move, rather than repeating phallogocentric representations,
can be seen as strategic since Kristevas own poetry64 literally disrupts the main text, while

59
Kristeva, Stabat Mater, p. 183
60
Loc. cit.
61
Loc. cit.
62
Loc.cit. Kristeva here seems to be alluding to the negative views on motherhood that were expressed by many
equality and existential feminists. In particular, Kristeva could be referring to Simone de Beauvoir (and this isnt
farfetched at all, since Kristeva indirectly refers to her quite often, see for instance, Kristeva, Womens Time,
p. 187-213). De Beauvoir is traditionally seen as an existential feminist who wanted to free women from
motherhood. Only by leaving their biological maternal functions behind, women could, according to de
Beauvoir, become equal to men, and thus go from immanence (i.e. the natural domain of childbirth and
housework, that was traditionally only reserved for women) to transcendence (i.e. the cultural-political domain
and functions that were usually only accessible for men), and become subjects of their own. But this view on de
Beauvoir as someone who is anti-motherhood, should be nuanced, as is argued in L. M. G. Zerilli, A Process
without a Subject. Simone de Beauvoir and Julia Kristeva on Maternity, Signs. Journal of Women in Culture
and Society 12 (1992) 1, p. 111-135. This wonderful article nuances de Beauvoirs thoughts on motherhood, and
claims that de Beauvoir, before Kristeva, developed the idea that the maternal body is the side of radical
splitting of the female subject (Ibid., p. 113). So, Zerilli quite convincingly argues that Kristevas subject-in-
process was already anticipated by de Beauvoir. For more on Kristevas views on motherhood as splitting the
subject, see the following page of this paper.
63
Kristeva, Stabat Mater, p. 179. Motherhood as a massive nothing in traditional Freudian psychoanalysis
reminds us of Luce Irigarays critique on Freud in Speculum of the other woman. Since Freuds psychoanalytical
discourse is still entrenched in phallogocentric thought, he will only see women (i.e. little girls, women, and
mothers) as the negative, dark other side of masculinity. Or as Irigaray states it: Freud is still party to a certain
logos and therefore to a certain economy of presence, a certain representation of presence, and he will be able
to picture the little girl becoming a woman only in terms of lack, absence, default, etc. See Irigaray, Speculum,
p. 41-42 for this quote, and p. 13-129 for a full overview of her critique on Freudian psychoanalysis.
64
Kristevas poetry here could be described as resembling lcriture fminine, or maternal speech (although
Kristeva wouldnt probably like to be labeled like that!). Kristevas maternal poetry in Stabat Mater is very
important, since it helps Kristeva to destabilize the traditional discourse of maternity by going back to the
semiotic. Or as Mary Caputi has argued: [] Stabat Mater represents an especially useful essay inasmuch as
it clarifies precisely why feminine language should be given a voice, namely because this form of expression
realigns us with our most basic instinctual drives, helping appease the energies and anxieties bound up with
erotic need and the innate awareness of death. See M. Caputi, The Maternal Metaphor in Feminist
Scholarship, Political Psychology 14 (1993) 2, Special Issue: Political Theory and Political Psychology, p. 324.

12
engaging in another vision of maternity. With this poetical discourse, Kristeva seems to re-
engage herself in her subversive concept of the maternal semiotic chora, or as Ziarek has
argued:

The event of motherhood and pregnancy represents for Kristeva another resumption of the semiotic
chora within the symbolic figuration of the body.65
The maternal, pregnant body seems to bring back the disruptive semiotic, since it
disturbs the symbolic inscription of the body as mine and separate from the others 66.
Kristeva illustrates this splitting of the body as follows:

My body is no longer mine, it doubles up [].67

The child, whether he or she is irreducibly an other. [] No identity holds up. A mothers identity is
maintained only through the well-known closure of consciousness within the indolence of habit, when
a woman protects herself from the borderline that severs her body and expatriates it from her child.68
The pregnant body seems to be immediately confronted with the issue of alterity; the other, or
the child inside the body, breaks down the binary distinction between subject and Other. This
de-subjectifies the maternal subject, and makes her into a continuous separation, a division
of the flesh69. This de-subjectification however shouldnt be perceived negatively, since the
maternal split subject first of all is an excellent example of what Kristeva described as
subjectivity-in-process, namely that the self is always heterogeneous and unstable.
Secondly, the maternal body seems to be carrying the Other in herself, which means
that it could be seen as reaching out to the other, the ethical70.71 Kristeva at the end of
Stabat Mater points at this ethical privilege of the maternal, by claiming that, from the
mothers love for the Other, a feminine ethics72 or an heretics73 could come into being.
And this maternal ethics does not only bring mother and child together, but also makes room
for a new and anti-phallogocentric representation of motherhood, in which the mother is not

Although Kristeva again probably wouldnt agree with the term feminine language in the previous quote, she
would agree with the fact that her maternal poetry is subversive, and even possibly revolutionary!
65
Ziarek, At the Limits of Discourse, p. 99.
66
Loc. cit.
67
Kristeva, Stabat Mater, p. 167.
68
Ibid., p. 179.
69
Ibid., p. 178.
70
Ibid., p. 182.
71
An interesting comparison between Kristeva and Irigaray can be made here: Kristeva appears to be claiming
that the maternal body appears to have a direct access to alterity, while Irigaray also attributes a similar function,
not to mothers, but to women in general. According to Irigaray, each woman is indefinitely other in herself
(Irigaray, This sex which is not one, p. 28) and she thereby seems to be arguing that women, because of the
multiplicity of their sexuality and jouissance (as opposed to the rigid phallic economy), are more open to
Otherness than masculine subjects, who are more oriented towards phallogocentrism that reduces all others to
the economy of the Same (Ibid., p. 74).
72
Kristeva, Stabat Mater, p. 185.
73
Loc. cit.

13
seen as the radical Other, but as carrying the Other in herself. The maternal in Kristevas
discourse thus is something that diffuses rigid definitions of identity and otherness, rather than
a non-subversive element in phallogocentrisms logic of symmetry. Additionally, a second
anti-phallogocentric element can be found in Kristevas innovative discourse on maternity,
when she claims that pregnancy is the threshold of culture and nature74, which means that
the pregnant body for Kristeva destabilizes the nature/culture binary, rather than upholding it.
So, to conclude this section, I argue that Kristeva isnt theorizing a maternal instinct
as a pre-discursive biological necessity, thereby naturalizing a specific cultural configuration
of maternity75, as Butler has stated it rather bluntly; Kristeva instead represents the maternal
body as some kind of a third term, as a place of in-betweeness, connecting culture and nature.
Kristeva isnt a phallogocentrist in disguise; she is strategically employing the notions of the
semiotic maternal chora, and the maternal body, in order to shift and alter something within
phallogocentrism. It is rather Butler herself, who is, as I see it, way off track when saying that
in Kristevas theory a full-scale refusal of the symbolic is impossible, and a discourse of
emancipation, for Kristeva, is out of the question76. Kristeva herself is quite clear about the
Symbolic: it cannot be thrown away that easily; however, Butler seems to suggest that a full
refusal of the (phallogocentric) Symbolic is possible, as if one could step out of it that easily!
Seen from that specific perspective, it of course makes sense that Butler devalues Kristevas
concept of the chora as something that is only engaged in a temporary and futile
disruption77.
Nonetheless, this paper really wants to put Kristevas semiotic maternal chora forward
as a source for feminist subversion. The potential subversiveness of the chora is now more or
less proven, but before we can come to our conclusion, one last ambiguity in Kristevas
oeuvre needs to be tackled, namely Kristevas attitude towards feminism.

74
Kristeva, Stabat Mater, p. 182. Nolle McAfee agrees with this statement and sees Kristevas philosophy as
a philosophy that is deconstructing all kinds of different binaries: The function of motherhood depicted here
[i.e. in Kristevas discourse] is radical: to be a fold between nature and culture, self and other, life and death, a
fold that is a catastrophe of being that shatters the usual representations. See McAfee, Julia Kristeva, p. 87 for
this quote.
75
Butler, The Body Politics of Julia Kristeva, p. 104.
76
Ibid., p. 110. Butler, luckily, at the end of her article seems to nuance her argument when claiming that
subversion has to take place within the law: If subversion is possible, it will be a subversion from within the
terms of the law, through the possibilities that emerge when the law turns against itself and spawns unexpected
mutations of itself. (Ibid., p. 117) This might prove that she isnt naively thinking that one could step out of the
Symbolic, and she thus more or less appears to be agreeing with Kristeva. Nonetheless, Butler seems to
misapprehend Kristevas conceptual theory; I have the feeling that Butler understands Kristevas semiotic
element (which interacts together and against the symbolic in the Symbolic domain), as the Semiotic; as some
kind of an archaic, pre-cultural domain that is opposed to the Symbolic. This makes her analysis problematic
from the start.
77
Ibid., p. 106.

14
 1.3. Kristevas critical, ambivalent engagement with feminism.

I habitually say that I used to belong to the movement [i.e. the feminist movement] and that I am now
more radical. In the books on the female genius, I say that I try to criticize implicitly mass
feminism. And when I ask what difference can we make, Im not trying to ask what difference can be
made by women as a group, but by a woman.
(Kristeva interviewed by Midttun, Crossing Borders, p. 174)

Julia Kristeva explicitly has tackled the issue of feminism in her essay Womens Time.
Before we start with an analysis of that essay however, it has to be emphasized that Kristeva
isnt alone in defending a specific position that at first could be seen as anti-feminist: many
other French thinkers have criticized feminism as a political, ideological project, seen in its
form of a mass feminism78. Luce Irigaray, for instance, was very aware of the fact that
political feminism could end up repeating the oppressive power structures of patriarchy,
instead of tearing them down. She stated the following about her position towards political
feminist movements:

For my part, I refuse to let myself be locked into a single group within the womens liberation
movement. Especially if such a group becomes ensnared in the exercise of power, if it purports to
determine the truth of the feminine, to legislate as to what it means to be a woman [].79
It seems to be so that Irigaray and Kristeva agree with one another when it comes to political
feminism: they both seem to be aware of the fact that any political feminist discourse is in
danger of becoming a naive counter-discourse, in which the pitfalls of essentialism and
exclusionary politics are never far away. But does this also make them into radical anti-
feminists? Kristeva has given us a seemingly clear-cut answer to her alleged anti-feminist
position: in Womens Time, she explicitly claims that she belongs to a third generation80
(meant as a signifying space81, rather than as a chronology82) of European feminist
thinkers. In order to understand this self-positioning; a positioning which in the end can be
labeled once more as ambiguous, we will take a look at Kristevas conceptualization of the
two other generations of European feminism, through her analysis of different notions of time.
By separating the concepts of linear and cyclical time, Kristeva suggests that female
subjectivity [] retains repetition and eternity83, and thus is not only linked to cyclical time
(as a result of a womans eternally recurring biological rhythm84), but also to what Kristeva

78
B. H. Midttun, Crossing the Borders. An Interview with Julia Kristeva, Hypatia 21 (2006) 4, p. 174.
79
Irigaray, This sex which is not one, p. 166.
80
Kristeva, Womens Time, p. 209.
81
Loc. cit.
82
Loc. cit.
83
Ibid., p. 191.
84
Loc. cit. Kristevas word choice (biological) might startle us here, but, she isnt relapsing into some kind of
naive biological essentialism here, I presume; she is rather again pinpointing to the fact that the maternal body

15
describes as a monumental temporality85 that seems to be breaking through the teleological
linear time of history. Is Kristeva here again alluding to the semiotic, disruptive function of
the maternal? However it may be, what is clear is that Kristeva engages in an analysis of the
history of European feminism. According to Kristeva, the first generation consisted out of
suffragettes and of existential feminists86, who wanted to become equal to men, by gaining
access to equal rights. The second generation of feminists however located themselves
outside the linear time of identities87, and were rather focused on difference than on
equality. Both of these strands are inherently deficient, in the opinion of Kristeva: the first
approach seems to be too universalizing, and although equality politics has liberated women,
it has also created the reductive and essentialist category of the Universal Woman 88. The
second generation on the other hand has often relapsed into creating a counter-society89, by
focusing too much on female specificity.
So, Kristeva herself doesnt want to engage in an overly universalist, nor in a
reactionary feminism, and this brings her to her own specific ambiguous position. Rather than
following an equality feminism that operates via linear time or a difference feminism that
wants to step outside time; Kristeva wishes to come to a project that combines linear time
with maternal time, in order to revalue the eternally occurring maternal function.90 Secondly,
it seems to be so that Kristevas own feminist attitude is more preoccupied with the
singularity of each person91 than with focusing on sexual difference. By stating that
feminism is but a moment in the thought of that anthropomorphic identity which currently
blocks the horizon of the discursive and scientific adventures of our species92, she appears to
be claiming that she wishes to go beyond feminisms identity politics, and even beyond all
identities.93 This is quite a bold statement, yet it makes sense when looked at it from
Kristevas subject-in-process-perspective. Nonetheless, she seems to making a supra-

forms acts as a threshold between culture and nature. Women are part of the Symbolic as speaking subjects, but
they are also closer to the natural, because of their reproductive ability.
85
Kristeva, Womens Time, p. 193.
86
Loc. cit.
87
Loc. cit.
88
Loc. cit.
89
Ibid., p. 202.
90
In de Beauvoirs terms, one could label linear time with the category of transcendence; and maternal time with
immanence. While de Beauvoir strongly wishes women to take on a more transcendent position (as in engaging
in politics etc.); Kristeva wants to combine transcendence and immanence, so that women would be able to do as
they please.
91
Kristeva, Womens Time, p. 210.
92
Ibid., p. 211.
93
The same argument has been constructed by Grosz. See Grosz, Julia Kristeva, p. 91. I do understand why
Grosz wants the call Kristeva an anti-feminist, yet, Id rather want to claim that she has an ambiguous
relationship with feminism, and that some of her key concepts can be fruitful for feminist theory. This will be
explored in detail in the conclusion of this paper, starting on page 17.

16
feminist claim here, as if feminism (seen as a politics of identity) has to be overcome. This
seemingly going beyond feminism of course has encouraged many readers of her oeuvre to
assume that she is an anti-feminist, but I would like to nuance this critique: Kristevas attitude
towards political strands of feminism is indeed a very negative one, and she isnt really keen
on neither equality nor on difference feminism, but this doesnt have to mean that all of her
key concepts have now become useless to feminist theory. Yes, her feminist status is quite
vague, and she might be losing the political-feminist We out of sight, by privileging
feminisms I, but should that really makes us conclude that her semiotic politics arent
subversive and feminist enough? A final, yet provisional, answer will be touched upon in this
papers conclusion.

Conclusion. The feminist subversiveness of the maternal semiotic chora.

Kristevas semiotic politics enhanced through an Irigarayian perspective.

As this paper has tried to prove, there are many concepts of Kristeva that could be labeled as
feminist, i.e. in the sense of revaluing the elements of the maternal; namely Kristevas notion
of herethics, her revised representation of motherhood, and last but not least, the concept of
the semiotic maternal chora. Since these concepts, and the chora in particular, form the
framework of Kristevas semiotic politics, we will probably find some answers to our
questions here. We have thus far discovered that the semiotic chora indeed has a disruptive
force attached to it in Kristevas theory, and by linking the chora to the maternal body in a
non-naturalizing way, she has strategically tried to revalue the maternal origins that have been
repressed in, yet always have been disrupting, the Symbolic or culture. I would like to see the
concept of the maternal semiotic chora as subversive and feminist, since it can be employed
strategically to disturb the Symbolic and help to revalue women as (non-phallic!) mothers.
In order to underline the feminist subversiveness of the semiotic chora even more, I
would like to conclude this paper by experimentally opening up Kristevas conceptualization
of the chora to the perspective of French feminist philosopher Luce Irigaray, who has taken
up the concept of the chora in a constructive, feminist way in An ethics of sexual difference
(1993/1984).94 This however doesnt mean that I am now all of the sudden coming back to my

94
This re-reading of Kristeva via Irigaray is not without dangers however. Although there are many similarities
to be found between these two French psychoanalytical thinkers, their theories seems to drift apart when it
comes to the issue of sexual difference. Grosz for example has argued that although Kristeva engages in the
concept of sexual difference, she in the end only does so in order to come to the dissolution of all sexual
identities, whereas Irigaray will focus more upon female sexual specificity. See Grosz, Sexual Subversions, p.
100. But, there are also a lot of theoretical similarities to be found between the two of them, as I have tried to

17
original claim: I do consider Kristevas semiotic politics to be subversive and feminist an
sich; she has proven that herself by constructing a non-phallogocentric discourse on
maternity; but, due to the vagueness of her feminist position; and because of her attachments
to the maternal, rather than to the feminine, Kristevas chora concept could benefit from a
more overtly feminine, feminist re-reading.
Luce Irigaray explicitly connects the concept of the chora to the issues of spatiality
and female subjectivity. To briefly summarize her feminist position, once could say that
Irigaray has tried to deconstruct and subvert all kinds of phallogocentric discourses, such as
traditional philosophical and psychoanalytical ones, from within, by strategically re-reading
them. She has done so in order to accentuate the fact that the existence of sexual difference
has been ignored in these discourses. This has to do with the fact that phallogocentrism
(which, according to Irigaray, basically came into being when Plato replaced the womb as the
origin of mankind, i.e. a symbol for the principle of the maternal-feminine, with his
immaterial Ideas, while at the same time exploiting and repressing the symbol of the womb in
his epistemology95) constantly reduces alterity to negativity, in order to make difference more
graspable and definable. Because of the fact that masculine subjectivity has been privileged in
these phallogocentric discourses, women have solely been seen and represented as muted
Others; they are the eternally inverted or negative alter ego[s]96.
Irigaray connects this misrepresentation of women to Platos chora, and pinpoints at
its phallogocentric meaning: the Platonic chora with its maternal connotations is formless and
acts a receptacle or slate, which Irigaray sees as a metaphor for the phallogocentric de-
subjectification of women:

show in this paper. Next to the fact that both Kristeva and Irigaray engage in their own revised versions of
psychoanalysis, claim that there is a repressed element of the maternal-feminine, construct their own more
feminist discourse on femininity and motherhood, and arent too keen on political feminism; they also can be
read as postmodern deconstructionists. For more insight on the deconstructionism of both these authors, and for
an overview of their basic framework, see J. Van Buren, Postmodernism Feminism and the Deconstruction of
the Feminine. Kristeva and Irigaray, The American Journal of Psychoanalysis 55 (1995) 3, p. 231-243.
Interesting is that Bianchi has also discussed the feminist potentiality of the chora by referring to Kristeva and
Irigaray. But, since her analysis of the Irigarayian conceptualization of the chora appears to be rather limited (she
is only referring to Irigarays Speculum), I want give a more detailed analysis of the Irigarayian chora in An
ethics of sexual difference (L. Irigaray, An ethics of sexual difference, Translated from the French by C. Burke
and G.C. Gill, London New York: Continuum, 2004, 179 p. Hereafter: Irigaray, An ethics of sexual difference).
See Bianchi, Receptacle/Chora, p. 135-142 for Bianchis analysis of the chora in the oeuvres of Irigaray and
Kristeva.
95
See Irigaray, Speculum of the other woman, p. 243-365 for Irigarays fascinating psychoanalytical, critical re-
reading of Platos cave metaphor.
96
Ibid., p. 22.

18
She [i.e. the mother] is always a clean slate ready for the fathers impressions []. She herself is
without figure or face or proper form [].97
The female body is thus exploited, and rather than having the opportunity to be seen as full
subjects, women are represented as maternal envelopes that have to protect masculine
subjectivity. Irigaray has explained this notion of the envelope more fully in An ethics of
sexual difference:

If traditionally, and as a mother, woman represents place for man, such a limit means that she
becomes a thing []. She finds herself delineated as a thing. Moreover, the maternal-feminine also
serves as an envelope, a container, the starting point from which man limits his things.98
In Platos (and Aristotles) conceptualization of the chora, which Irigaray refers to in
her essay Place, Interval99; woman is place100, and creates a space for masculine
subjectivity, rather than having a place of her own. Woman is supposed to be a container for
the child [] [and] she may be a container for the man, but not for herself 101. And this is
exactly what Irigaray wants to change: she wants to grant women their own space; a
subjectivity, by reconstructing the chora (that stands for woman as an enclosed envelope) in a
manner that is fruitful for feminist theory.
According to Irigaray, not every aspect of femininity can be appropriated by
phallogocentrism: women always also remain elsewhere102. Female sexuality and female
jouissance for Irigaray consist out of a non-phallic multiplicity that cant be reduced to the
solid parameters of masculine sexuality. Their fluidity and multiplicity (explained by Irigaray
via the symbol of the two lips103) makes it so that women never really coincide with the
Platonic, phallogocentric sense of the chora:

Woman, insofar as she is a container, is never a closed one. Place is never closed. The boundaries
touch against one another while still remaining open.104
Irigaray seems to feminize the chora as a subversive, excessive concept here, by stating that it
also points at woman as an open volume, rather than to woman as a closed-up container. By
re-reading the chora in a feminine way, Irigaray not only wishes to attribute subjectivity to
women, but also hopes to develop an ethics in which sexual difference and the multiplicity of
possible subjectivities will be acknowledged:

97
Irigaray, Speculum of the other woman, p. 307.
98
Irigaray, An ethics of sexual difference, p. 11.
99
L. Irigaray Place, Interval. A Reading of Aristotle, Physics IV, in: Irigaray, An ethics of sexual difference, p.
31-48 (hereafter: Irigaray, Place, Interval).
100
Irigaray, Place, Interval, p. 32.
101
Ibid., p. 37.
102
Irigaray, This sex which is not one, p. 76
103
See Ibid., from p. 205-218 on how Irigaray uses this idea of the two lips as a paradigm for female sexuality.
104
Irigaray, Place, Interval, p. 45.

19
But, in order for an ethics of sexual difference to come into being, we must constitute a possible place
for each sex, body, and flesh to inhabit.105
By re-reading the chora Irigaray thus hopes to find a space for female subjectivity and sexual
difference.
To conclude this paper, I have to admit that this Irigarayian re-reading of the chora
might have complicated things even more, which means that a further reflection on where
Julia Kristevas and Luce Irigarays theories could meet each other would be welcome.
However, two things have become clear in this re-reading: first of all, although Kristeva
would probably not defend the idea of an ethics of sexual difference; she, too, has attached an
ethical connotation to the maternal chora, by connecting it to an heretics as a way to deal with
alterity in a non-phallogocentric manner. This ethical connotation of the chora already brings
Kristeva and Irigaray closer to each other theoretically, and secondly, I would like to argue
that Irigarays more feminine-focused chora could make Kristevas semiotic politics even
more fruitful for feminist theory: if Irigarays feminization of the chora as a place for fluid
female subjectivity were to precede Kristevas maternal semiotic chora; Kristevas semiotic
politics would become even more feminist, since her politics would now be able to provide a
space for women as women, and not only for women as mothers in the non-phallogocentric
sense. Kristevas politics were already partially feminist, I argue, but not exactly feminine.
Her semiotic politics could thus indeed be enhanced by being feminized through an
Irigarayian perspective, but, taken as a whole, Kristevas conceptual framework (and her
concept of the maternal semiotic chora in particular), is inherently non-phallogocentric and
truly revolutionary; not in a counter-like rebellious manner, but in a strategically subversive-
feminist way!

105
Irigaray, An ethics of sexual difference, p. 17.

20
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24