Julia Kristeva, herself a product of the famous May '68 Paris student uprising, has long been fascinated by the concept of rebellion and revolution. Psychoanalysts believe that rebellion guarantees our independence and creative capacities, but is revolution still possible? Confronted with the culture of entertainment, can we build and nurture a culture of revolt, in the etymological and Proustian sense of the word: an unveiling, a return, a displacement, a reconstruction of the past, of memory, of meaning? In the first part of the book, Kristeva examines the manner in which three of the most unsettling modern writers -- Aragon, Sartre, and Barthes -- affirm their personal rebellion.

In the second part of the book, Kristeva ponders the future of rebellion. She maintains that the "new world order" is not favorable to revolt. "What can we revolt against if power is vacant and values corrupt?" she asks. Not only is political revolt mired in compromise among parties whose differences are less and less obvious, but an essential component of European culture -- a culture of doubt and criticism -- is losing its moral and aesthetic impact.

Résumé
A thorough examination of the manner in which three of the most unsettling modern writers-Aragon, Sartre, and Barthes-affirm their personal rebellion followed by Kristeva's own ideas on the future of rebellion.

Contenu

Chapter 1. What Revolt Today? The Dignity of Revolt (The Novel) Man in Revolt (Retrospective Return) Revolt as Jouissance and Dispersion (Psychoanalysis) Negativity in Revolt (Philosophy and...Freud) Paradoxical Logics (Resistances to Psychoanalysis) Intimacy in Revolt (The Imaginary) Chapter 2. Can Forgiveness Heal? The Trilogy of Evil Donation or Sadness The Consciousness of Fault (Heidegger and Freud) Against Guilt: Rebirth The Poiesis of Interpretation Depression at the Edge of Words (the Story of Anne) Chapter 3. The Scandal of the Timeless Psychoanalysis is not Intersubjectivity The Subversion of Temporality The Freudian Scandal Three Figures of the Analytical Timeless: 1. The Memory-Trace (Erinnerungsspur or Errinnerungrest), Working-through (Durcharbeitung), The Dissolution of Transference-Homo natura and Homo analyticus Chapter 4. The Intimate: from Sense to the Sensible (Logics, Jouissance, Style) Once more, On the Soul (organic, animal, general) Images, loquela, Jouissance (Augustine, Loyola, Sade) Psychical Life as Jouissance Science and Experience: Counter-transference The Taste for the Singular Life (Style) Plato's Cave Hides a Sensory Cave The "Second Dwelling" (Proust's Dream) Writing, Therapy, Beauty Between word-signs and word fetishes: Interpretation Chapter 5. Fantasy and Cinema Organisms of Mixed Race (Didier, the Collages Man) Fear and Spectacular Seduction Fantasy and the Imaginary: The Specular The Representable Conflict Cinema and Evil Chapter 6. Barthes: The Savor of Disenchantment Iconoclasm A Position: Writing Against Modern Man in all his States: Vices and Affections Myth: A Type of Speech Chosen by History Chapter 7. Barthes: Constructor of Language, Constructor of the Sensory The Spiritual Exercises of Loyola Who is the Subject of this Polyphony? Images The loquela Indifference and Suspension Chapter 8. Barthes: The Intractable Lover Figures The Jardin du Luxembourg Abysses Outside Language Sensory vs. Sexual: The New Lovers N. W. P.: The Non-will-to-possess Chapter 9. Sartre: The Imaginary and Nothingness The Fatal Freedom of Consciousness Negativity, "I," "Bad Faith" What Transcendence? Who is of Bad Faith? or, Atheism The Realized Imaginary: The Totalizing Spectacle Chapter 10. Sartre: Freedom as Questioning Negation at its Origin Symbolic Castration: A Question (The Story of Martine) Before Judgment: Repulsion or Freedom? The Freudian Attempt to Articulate the Drive and the Symbol Childhood: Self-Destruction or the Power of Words: The Words Chapter 11. Sartre: Again, the Imaginary, Fantasy, Spectacle The Mental Image: Virtual Nonbelief The Consubstantiality of Image and Thought Lack or Lie? Body and Image: From Hallucination to Fantasy Back to the Unconscious Chapter 12. Giving the Game Away out of Anticipation From the Political to the Intimate, from the Feminine to the Impossible What's it about? Why "Blanche"? The Woman and the Linguist "Gaiffier! Gaiffier! Go back to your place. Where is he?" "And then I realized the trickery..." More on Communism and the Destiny of the Question