An Outlaw Ethics for the Study of Religions: Maternality and the Dialogic Subject in Julia Kristeva’s 'Stabat Mater'

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Main author: Hawthorne, Sian
Format: Journal Article           
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id eprints-16922
recordtype eprints
institution SOAS, University of London
collection SOAS Research Online
language English
language_search English
description In this essay I examine Julia Kristeva’s transgressive body of work as a strategic embodiment of, and argument for, an ethical orientation towards otherness predicated on the image of divided subjectivity identified by Jacques Lacan but powerfully re-theorised as dialogic by Kristeva. I focus on what is, for Kristeva, a stylistically unique essay – 'Stabat Mater' – which examines a number of institutional discourses about motherhood from the western philosophical, religious, and psychoanalytical traditions, and simultaneously subverts them with a parallel discourse (and enactment) ostensibly by an actual mother. The text itself, I argue, can be read as a performance of dialogic subjectivity and of Kristeva’s conception of maternality, which implies a radical ethical imperative – termed 'herethics' – towards alterity. I propose that this herethical model might heuristically inform current debates regarding the ethical orientations of the study of religions as an academic field.
format Journal Article
author Hawthorne, Sian
author_facet Hawthorne, Sian
authorStr Hawthorne, Sian
author_letter Hawthorne, Sian
title An Outlaw Ethics for the Study of Religions: Maternality and the Dialogic Subject in Julia Kristeva’s 'Stabat Mater'
publisher Brill
publishDate 2013
url https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/16922/

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