Few scholars can lay claim to being immortalised in a pop song; that the Franco-Bulgarian literary theorist, semiotician and psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva can garner such admiration is testimony to her wide appeal and indeed to her cult status. Such a tribute, moreover, in no way diminishes her enormous scholarly achievements, and it is therefore without irony that she can be included among that small group of people that she herself refers to, rather disparagingly, as the ‘Star Academy’ (2009a: 20). Kristeva is much in demand as a speaker, and she has received many prestigious awards, including the Holberg International Memorial Prize and the Hannah Arendt Prize. The output and scope of her work to date are staggering and still growing, stretching from early work on linguistics and semiotics, to literary theory, psychoanalysis, political philosophy, feminism and, in recent years, fiction. However, despite Kristeva's intellectual stardom and broad reach, she is a contested figure, especially within that area of critical thought that is the subject matter of this book: contemporary feminist theory. Exploring the reasons for feminism's diverse and conflicting responses to Kristeva is one of my aims, but I also want to establish Kristeva's significant contribution towards contemporary feminist thought.