Sara Beardsworth is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Southern Illinois University.

• Acknowledgments Introduction Suffering: A Piece of the Reality that has Come to grief The Tendential Severance of the Semiotic and Symbolic Part I. From the Revolutionary Standpoint to the Nihilism Problematic 1. The Early View of Psychoanalysis and Art IntroductionThe Lacanian Background Revolution in Poetic Language 2. Primary Narcissism The Appearance of the Nihilism Problematic Primary Idealization 3. Ab-jection IntroductionThe Phobic Object"Where Am I?" 4. Primal Loss Introduction Intolerance for Loss The Signifying Failure Part II. Art and Religion: Kristeva's Minor Histories of Modernity 5. The Powers and Limitations of Religion Introduction Psychoanalysis and the Sacred Religious Codifications of Abjection 6. The Kristevan Aesthetic Introduction Holbein: "God is dead" Duras: A New Suffering World A New Amatory World Part III. The Social and Political Implications of Kristeva's Thought 7. Ethics and Politics Introduction The Ethics of Psychoanalysis Nations Without Nationalism 8. Kristeva's Feminism Introduction "Woman" and "Nature" Kristeva or Butler? The Maternal Feminine Conclusion: Revolt Culture and Exemplary Lives Notes Bibliography Index