Abjection

Anorexia and Abjection: A Review Essay

This article draws on a review of Megan Warin’s 2010 book, Abject Relations: Everyday Worlds of Anorexia, to discuss the ways in which a feminist ethnographic approach might disrupt dominant cultural narratives of eating disorders and embodiment. My argument draws on feminist work on figuration and ‘body image’ to discuss how the anorexic body becomes a figure of abjection, both in media images...

Horror and the monstrous-feminine An imaginary abjection

Domestic abuse as a transgressive practice: understanding nurses' responses through the lens of abjection.

Domestic abuse is a worldwide public health issue with long-term health and social consequences. Nurses play a key role in recognizing and responding to domestic abuse. Yet there is considerable evidence that their responses are often inappropriate and unhelpful, such as trivializing or ignoring the abuse. Empirical studies have identified several reasons why nurses' responses are sometimes wan...

Narcissism, Abjection and the Reader(e) of Simone de Beauvoir's Les Belles Images

Discussions of Simone de Beauvoir's last novel, Les Belles Images (1966), tend to be in the mode of apology. The characters are shallow—runs the typical claim—the plot (essentially, Laurence's gradual awakening to her own "belle image" identity of feminine clichés as fulfilled wife, devoted mother, successful professional) flimsy and predictable. Yet, in studying a specular dynamic of narcissis...

"Something covered with an old blanket": Nancy and other dead mothers in Oliver Twist.

In Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, Julia Kristeva outlines her theory of abjection as a simultaneous fascination and horror stemming from sensorial reminders of the subject's primal, psychological relation to the mother. In this essay, I show how these psychological perspectives can potentially result in acts of physical violence, which I call the "abject response." Applied to literatu...