Signifiance and transubstantiation

Julia Kristeva and originary translation

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.60056/CCL.2022..155-176

Keywords:

artistic avant-garde, semiotic, signifiance, transubstantiation

Abstract

The article reconstructs the evolution of Kristeva’s major term signifiance in her endeavour to conceptualise literature and art as processes translating the continuous making and unmaking of the subject. This evolution involves the shift from Kristeva’s early focus predominantly on poetry towards her later emphasis on the novel (Proust and Colette), which led her to the concept of transubstantiation as “metaphore become flesh”.

Author Biography

  • Miglena Nikolchina

    Miglena Nikolchina is a poet, writer, and theoretician whose research interests involve the interactions of literature and philosophy. In English, her publications include numerous articles as well as the books Matricide in Language: Writing Theory in Kristeva and Woolf (2004) and Lost Unicorns of the Velvet Revolutions: Heterotopias of the Seminar (2013). She guest-edited a special issue of differences (2021, 32.1) on “The Undead of Literary Theory”. Her most recent book (in Bulgarian) is God with Machine: Subtracting the Human (2022).

References

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Published

2025-11-06

Issue

Vol. 8 (2022)

Section

IV. NEW STUDIES ON JULIA KRISTEVA

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How to Cite

Signifiance and transubstantiation: Julia Kristeva and originary translation. (2025). Colloquia Comparativa Litterarum, 8, 155-176. https://doi.org/10.60056/CCL.2022..155-176