From cell to subject turned toward the world

Julia Kristeva’s theories on subject and abject in Amalie Smith’s collection I CIVIL (2012)

Abstract

This article examines Amalie Smith’s I CIVIL as a work positioned in the fertile overlap between Julia Kristeva’s theory of subject formation and new materialist perspectives on body, matter, and world. Drawing on Kristeva’s ideas of fusion, abjection, and separation, the article shows how the text portrays subjectivity not as linear development but as a continual renegotiation of boundaries. The love story is woven together with depictions of cell division, illness, and dissolution, and these biological and material processes emerge as key forces shaping the subject’s experience and transformation.

Through close readings of motifs such as mineral collections, dental assemblages, and technological interventions, the article demonstrates how nonhuman phenomena are granted an active and meaningful role within the narrative. Rather than interpreting I CIVIL through a single theoretical lens, it argues that the work functions as a poetic montage in which Kristeva’s focus on the fragility and limits of subjectivity enters into dialogue with new materialism’s emphasis on material agency. In doing so, the article contributes both to research on Smith’s authorship and to broader theoretical discussions on how subjectivity and the world can be rethought today.