BICA School Lab | 30 Essex Street
Open to All | Free to Join | No Registration Required
Join us at BICA School for a casual, come-as-you-are reading group that welcomes everyone—whether you've read the text cover to cover or just want to hear what others have to say. We'll explore critical and curious texts together in a space that values open conversation, listening, and learning.
Read ahead if you can, but there's no pressure to be an expert—bring your thoughts, questions, and curiosity. Note: Chapter 1 only — the link goes to the full book.
Why does a corpse, or spoiled milk, make us recoil before we even think about it?
Kristeva calls that reaction "the abject"—not quite an object you can name and hold at a distance, and not quite part of you either. It's what gets expelled to keep the boundary of the self intact: filth, waste, anything that blurs the line between inside and outside, self and other, life and death. She traces this further than disgust—into questions of language, religion, and art, suggesting that literature and art have long served as ways of approaching the abject safely, giving form to what otherwise threatens to undo us. Dense in places, but the opening pages are vivid and physical, grounded in concrete sensations before they get philosophical. A challenging, generative read for anyone interested in how art handles what culture would rather not look at directly.