Foreigners to Kristeva: Refashioning Orientalism and the Limits of Love

Julia Kristeva, an influential 20th- and 21st-century thinker, adopts an approach to religion that distinguishes between Islamic and Christian belief systems. She argues that, unlike the Christian God, the God of Islam is preeminent and abstracted from worldly affairs and human experience. This thesis reinforces a general notion that Europeans typically defend Western culture against the assumed assault of others/Muslims. This article examines Kristeva’s acclaimed universal and ethical positions and their relevance to other cultures, particularly Islamic cultures. Notwithstanding the fact that Kristeva’s approach is informed by postmodern psychological and religious terms, she continues to refashion an orientalist discourse that colonial powers utilized in the era of high colonialism to rule and disempower others/Muslims. The inconsistencies in many of her statements show that the transcendentalism she unfavorably attributes to Islam is germane to many aspects of her thought.