Kristeva\u27s Thought Specular: Aesthetic Disobedience as a New Form of Revolt

© 2020 The University of Memphis In Revolt, She Said, Julia Kristeva makes the intriguing suggestion that contemporary art may serve (or provoke) a benevolent form of experimental psychosis. Expanding on this idea in a recent essay, she argues that such art-induced psychosis becomes distinct in its capacity for triggering wholesome impulses toward social reform broadly conceived, that is, impulses which carry a political as well as a moral charge, but fall outside the domain of professional politics and ethical theory proper. To make this case and to emphasize the significance of Kristeva\u27s work for exploring the contested territory of the politics of aesthetics (in Jacques Rancière\u27s phrase), the present discussion brings Kristeva\u27s important but under-researched notion of the “thought specular” to bear on Jonathan Neufeld\u27s conception of “aesthetic disobedience.” By co-engaging these authors, one can extrapolate a model for participatory art that is not framed by rationalist standards of author intentionality or by communication-theoretical approaches, which cast the spectators as impassive recipients of the artwork\u27s presumed political message. Rather, witnessed by Tania Bruguera\u27s long-term work entitled Immigrant Movement International, participation in aesthetic disobedience can deliver on Kristeva\u27s promise of intimate revolt in the context of artistic activism or “artivism.”