Harvard WGS and RLL professor Alice Jardine has written the first biography of Julia Kristeva, one of the world's most celebrated intellectuals. Informed in part by extensive interviews with Kristeva herself, the biography analyzes the complexities of Kristeva's writing and emphasizes her call for an urgent revival of bold interdisciplinary thinking in order to understand--and to act--in today's world.
Jardine's book, At the Risk of Thinking: An Intellectual Biography of Julia Kristeva, will be released by Bloomsbury Press in January 2020. Please join us in celebrating her publication!
Details about a Spring 2020 book reception in Professor Jardine's honor will be shared on our website as they become available.
Reviews:
“With a light and magical touch, Alice Jardine narrates the story of Julia Kristeva's journey from the Black Sea to the Atlantic to the expanse of human singularity. In her intimate account, Jardine shows how Kristeva became one of the most extraordinary intellectuals of our era...[F]or every reader, here is is a story that will inspire us all to think more deeply, to revolt against preconceptions, and--instead of being shaped by the Big Other--to become our own force in creating the meaning of our lives.” – Noëlle McAfee, Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Psychoanalytic Studies Program, Emory University, USA
“Alice Jardine's intellectual biography of Julia Kristeva is breathtaking. Exploring the relationship between Kristeva's life and her writings, Jardine reflects not only on the powerful influences on Kristeva's thinking and the importance of Kristeva's work for contemporary culture, but also on what it means to write a biography.” – Kelly Oliver, W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy, Vanderbilt University, USA
