Nilgün Tutal’s book titled Julia Kristeva: Confronting the Unfathomable, was published by Beyoğlu Publishing at the end of 2023, and Tutal will base her talk on the writings from this book.
Julia Kristeva’s intellectual universe, which argues that thinking and questioning are indispensable in all of her works, and that this thinking is neither nihilistic nor resembling religious contemplation, can be read as different responses to the question of whether language or love/affection is prior. Physicality, the “disgusting” femaleness, the disappearance of meaning in the reign of images, rebellion, or questioning as eternal inner regression—all these serve to shed light on what Kristeva comprehended from pre-verbal and post-verbal realms, and aim to open the path to reading the thinker’s works.
The writings in the book originated from works that began after the Turkish translations of The Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (1980) in 2004 and The New Diseases of the Soul (1993) in 2007. The Powers of Horror questions the blurring or absence of the distinction between object and subject through the states of disgust-rejection-oscillation (abjection) while also investigating their connection to anthropological and religious prohibitions on eating and taboos. On the other hand, it analyzes the writers, thinkers, and poets who have addressed this state. Almost all of us have been influenced by these prohibitions and taboos in some way. An approach that examines oneself and society through this perspective, challenging them with eternal cyclical reflection, can help us recognize the richness of sensory reason. The New Diseases of the Soul enables us to recognize the possibility of encountering and finding solutions to the dead ends created by the acceleration of time. What I am trying to convey is that the writings in this book emphasize that Kristeva has important things to say to our era, and that her words are significant. In total, the writings also point very effectively to Kristeva’s unique conceptual universe, as seen in her works Le sens et le non-sens de la Révolte (1996) and La révolte intime (1997), which were published in two volumes but have not yet been translated into Turkish. Even the translation of their titles reveals the uniqueness of these works: The Meaning of Rebellion or The Meaninglessness of Rebellion, The Direction of Questioning as Eternal Return or Its Lack of Direction; Inner Rebellion or Questioning as Eternal Return to Oneself…
Bio:
Nilgün Tutal is a faculty member at the Faculty of Communication, Galatasaray University. She is a writer for the journal Varlık (Culture and Literature). Her works, both translations and original writings, span many fields, from philosophy and feminist theory to novels, media representations, globalization and multiculturalism, discourse forms, cinema, and television violence. Her academic research areas include: Media and Communication Theories, Popular Culture, Media and Violence, Intercultural Communication, Communication Studies, Feminist Media Theories, Cinema Theories and Film Analysis, Television Studies, Social Media and Activism, and Scientific Knowledge Transfer in the Digital Age. Some of her published books include: Julia Kristeva: Confronting the Unfathomable (2023, Beyoğlu Publishing); The City Book: From Architecture to Music, From Cafés to Tombstones (Istanbul: Varlık Publishing, 2019); Haneke Wishes Unsettling Views (Istanbul: Ekslibris Publishing, 2014); Global Communication (Istanbul: Ekslibris Publishing, 2014); Television and the Violence Within Us (Istanbul: Ekslibris Publishing, 2014).
