Head cases: Julia Kristeva on philosophy and art in depressed times

While philosophy and psychoanalysis privilege language and conceptual distinctions and mistrust the image, the philosopher and psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva recognizes the power of art and the imagination to unblock important sources of meaning.

She also appreciates the process through which creative acts counteract and transform feelings of violence and depression.

Reviewing Kristeva's corpus, Elaine P. Miller considers the intellectual's 'aesthetic idea' and 'thought specular' in their capacity to reshape depressive thought on both the individual and cultural level.