Addresses speech as a conduct which has become subject to political debate and regulation. The text invesigates hate speech regulation, anti-pornography arguments and controversies about gay self-declaration in the military.

A work of anthropology and sociology, of biology and psychoanalysis, which stands - almost five decades after its first appearance - as the first landmark in the modern feminist upsurge that has transformed perceptions of the social relationship of man and womankind in our time.

Kristeva begins with the personal and moves outward by examining world literature and philosophy. She discusses the foreigner in Greek tragedy, in the Bible, and in the literature of the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Enlightenment, and the twentieth century.

Arguing that traditional feminism is wrong to look to a natural notion of the female, or indeed of sex or gender, this book questions the category 'woman' and continues in this vein with examinations of 'the masculine' and 'the feminine'. It considers gender as a reiterated social performance rather than the expression of a prior reality.

Ecrits is the essential source for anyone who seeks to understand this seminal thinker and his influence on contemporary thought and culture.