Kristeva and Food

Synonyms

Abject and food; Abjection and food; Animality; Consumption; Monstrous; Psychoanalysis and food; Revulsion and food

Introduction

In Powers of Horror, Julia Kristeva discusses food prohibitions in the context of developing a general theory of abjection. There, she defines the abject as what defies categorization and thereby inspires both horror and fascination. As she describes it, abjection is an essential part of psychic development and necessary for weaning a child from its dependence on its mother’s body. She also argues that abjection is part of the process of becoming a human being. If on the level of the individual abjection is necessary for separating from the maternal body, on the level of the social, abjection is necessary for separating from the animal. Both of these separations involve eating and prohibitions against eating. In terms of the maternal body, the infant is weaned off of breast milk. In terms of the social, the infant learns that it is not an animal and...