The Idea of Europe and the Ideal of Cosmopolitanism in the Work of Julia Kristeva

Abstract

This article puts forward a critical investigation and comparative assessment of Julia Kristeva's political writing on Europe and cosmopolitanism. Kristeva's reflections on the status of the stranger in the European religious and secular traditions, and her persistent argument on the need to constructively reformulate what is most conducive to a present and future cosmopolitanism from within those traditions and discourses, have already been recognized. What this article addresses is the need for a constructive critical dialogue with the themes and arguments of Kristeva's writing on these issues in the context of recent writing on cosmopolitanism. The article is concerned with ethical cosmopolitanism, as Kristeva's thought mostly bears on the subjective, interpersonal and communal dimensions of cosmopolitanism. Two main problems are identified that crucially undermine Kristeva's thinking on Europe. First, Kristeva's views on the present and future of Europe repeatedly confine the idea of Europe to the representation of a very particular history of French modernity that is only tempered by occasional, comparative yet complementary, references to the USA. The second problem concerns the use of psychoanalytic theories of questionable validity to support cultural analyses and theoretical propositions of dubious value for a cosmopolitan ethos or politics.