Master and Convert: women and other strangers

Abstract

This paper is about estrangement, about exile: about waiting to be called into existence. Waiting. In transit. Homesick. Lost. The paper offers an attempt to examine the position of women as foreigners, as strangers in a male world. Despite the criticisms of Kristeva's work for its lack of attention to class, gender and race, her ideas have currency for the examination of these areas. Other criticisms have mentioned the extent to which she deals with her own subjectivity in her writing. However, this seems to be a very unreasonable criticism. It is precisely Kristeva's own experiences which makes her supremely capable of this particular analysis and, for me, it works to open up not only a gendered space but also a class wound.