Abjection

In critical theory, abjection is the state of being cast off and separated from norms and rules, especially on the scale of society and morality. The term has been explored in post-structuralism as that which inherently disturbs conventional identity and cultural concepts.[1] Julia Kristeva explored an influential and formative overview of the concept in her 1980 work Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, where she describes subjective horror (abjection) as the feeling when an individual experiences or is confronted by the sheer experience of what Kristeva calls one's typically repressed "corporeal reality", or an intrusion of the Real in the Symbolic Order.[2]

Kristeva's concept of abjection is used commonly to analyze popular cultural narratives of horror, and discriminatory behavior manifesting in misogyny, homophobia and genocide. The concept of abjection builds on the traditional psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan, whose studies often narrowed in on the experience of the disintegration of personal distinctions, through neurosis in Freud and psychosis in Lacan.[2][3]

  1. ^ Childers, Joseph (1995). Childers, Joseph; Hentzi, Gary (eds.). The Columbia Dictionary of Modern Literary and Cultural Criticism. p. 1. ISBN 978-0231072434.
  2. ^ a b Gross, Elizabeth (2012). "The Body of Signification". In Fletcher, John; Benjamin, Andrew (eds.). Abjection, Melancholia and Love: The Work of Julia Kristeva. Routledge. pp. 92–93. ISBN 978-0415522939.
  3. ^ Sjhölm, Cecelia (2009). "Fear of Intimacy? Psychoanalysis and the Resistance to Commodification". In Oliver, Kelly; Keltner, S. K. (eds.). Psychoanalysis, Aesthetics, and Politics in the Work of Julia Kristeva. State University of New York Press. pp. 181–88. ISBN 978-1438426495.