<p>As Bryan indicates, this question is hardly answerable in the context of science. However, I can take a bash at it;</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Can anyone explain what she means by this? Isn't the melancholic, in the last analysis, the same as the depressed?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>No, melancholy is more of a 'normal' emotional state, whereas depression is a debilitating mental illness associated with morbid symptoms and higher chances of suicide.  </p>

<p>As to that other passage, I reckon that's really a biased, opinion-fueled statement with no relation whatsoever in science. To cite a part of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Kristeva" rel="nofollow noreferrer">wiki page on her</a>: </p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Her [...] work includes [...] intertextuality, the semiotic, and abjection, in the fields of linguistics, literary theory and criticism, psychoanalysis, biography and autobiography, political and cultural analysis, art and art history.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>These areas of expertise are quite far from science. Psychoanalysis comes closest, but even that is disputed in terms of not being embedded in evidence-based science.  </p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-08-01T03:59:47.647Z
I wonder what is the take of the site on non-falsifiable statements/researches/fields, such as philosophy. I've seen questions and answers on this site that are fully about philosophy
Ooker
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-07-31T21:48:13.637Z
2019-08-01T18:51:07.093Z
2019-08-01T18:51:07.093Z
AliceD
<p>I hope I am asking this question in the right place. In her reading of Duras's <em>Hiroshima mon amour</em>, Julia Kristeva, the analyst and philosopher, refers to Duras as a melancholic. Anne Juranville, also an analyst and a professor of literature, however, believes, in Kelly Oliver's words, that "</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Duras is too depressed to be melancholic <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=vvcit1tEOSMC&amp;lpg=PA152&amp;ots=gic6uj2sQW&amp;dq=%22Duras%20is%20too%20depressed%20to%20be%20melancholic%22&amp;pg=PA152#v=onepage&amp;q=%22Duras%20is%20too%20depressed%20to%20be%20melancholic%22&amp;f=false" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Oliver, 2001, 152</a></p>
</blockquote>

<p>Can anyone explain what she means by this? Isn't the melancholic, in the last analysis, the same as the depressed? </p>

<p>What does she mean by saying that</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>the melancholic “subject,” and in particular the feminine one,
  maintains an immediate, traumatic relation to the real qua maternal
  Thing. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=vvcit1tEOSMC&amp;pg=PA152&amp;lpg=PA152&amp;dq=%22Duras%20is%20too%20depressed%20to%20be%20melancholic%22&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=gic6uj2sQW&amp;sig=ACfU3U2GNatMICHD0UjbGLfd89JUYaaEKw&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=2ahUKEwiDsrT94N_jAhVEy6QKHTYMCyAQ6AEwAHoECAAQAQ#v=onepage&amp;q=%22Duras%20is%20too%20depressed%20to%20be%20melancholic%22&amp;f=false" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Ibid</a></p>
</blockquote>

<p>Here's part of the paragraph cited from Kelly Oliver's <em>Psychoanalysis, Aesthetics, and Politics in the Work of Kristeva</em> (2009):</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Anne Juranville, also an analyst and professor of literature,
  disagrees with Kristeva’s clinical diagnosis, arguing that Duras is
  too depressed to be melancholic, but does agree that the melancholic
  “subject,” and in particular the feminine one, maintains an
  immediate, traumatic relation to the real qua maternal Thing. This
  nostalgic denial of individuation, as for Kristeva, positions the
  melancholic beyond the pale of symbolic intervention, unable to access
  in any way the historical reality of the social: “Stupefied,
  horrified, [the melancholic] fixes himself in an inhuman zone beyond
  death where, lacking the least symbolic recourse, he is condemned to
  remain eternally and passively concentrated on this gaping wound that
  he himself is” (1993, 54). <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=vvcit1tEOSMC&amp;lpg=PA152&amp;ots=gic6uj2sQW&amp;dq=%22Duras%20is%20too%20depressed%20to%20be%20melancholic%22&amp;pg=PA152#v=onepage&amp;q=%22Duras%20is%20too%20depressed%20to%20be%20melancholic%22&amp;f=false" rel="nofollow noreferrer">ibid</a></p>
</blockquote>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-07-31T18:37:03.647Z
There isn't a scientific diagnosis of melancholic besides a subtype of depression that I am aware of; it's possible the term is used in pseudoscience. Your sources seem to use the term in the context of some sort of literary analysis, which also might use a different terminology. I think we probably can't answer what these authors are thinking here.
Bryan Krause
<psychoanalysis>
What does this writer mean?
developer
# What does this writer mean?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2019-07-31)

I hope I am asking this question in the right place. In her reading of Duras's *Hiroshima mon amour*, Julia Kristeva, the analyst and philosopher, refers to Duras as a melancholic. Anne Juranville, also an analyst and a professor of literature, however, believes, in Kelly Oliver's words, that "

> Duras is too depressed to be melancholic [Oliver, 2001, 152](https://books.google.com/books?id=vvcit1tEOSMC&lpg=PA152&ots=gic6uj2sQW&dq=%22Duras%20is%20too%20depressed%20to%20be%20melancholic%22&pg=PA152#v=onepage&q=%22Duras%20is%20too%20depressed%20to%20be%20melancholic%22&f=false)

Can anyone explain what she means by this? Isn't the melancholic, in the last analysis, the same as the depressed?

What does she mean by saying that

> the melancholic “subject,” and in particular the feminine one,
> maintains an immediate, traumatic relation to the real qua maternal
> Thing. [Ibid](https://books.google.com/books?id=vvcit1tEOSMC&pg=PA152&lpg=PA152&dq=%22Duras%20is%20too%20depressed%20to%20be%20melancholic%22&source=bl&ots=gic6uj2sQW&sig=ACfU3U2GNatMICHD0UjbGLfd89JUYaaEKw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiDsrT94N_jAhVEy6QKHTYMCyAQ6AEwAHoECAAQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22Duras%20is%20too%20depressed%20to%20be%20melancholic%22&f=false)

Here's part of the paragraph cited from Kelly Oliver's *Psychoanalysis, Aesthetics, and Politics in the Work of Kristeva* (2009):

> Anne Juranville, also an analyst and professor of literature,
> disagrees with Kristeva’s clinical diagnosis, arguing that Duras is
> too depressed to be melancholic, but does agree that the melancholic
> “subject,” and in particular the feminine one, maintains an
> immediate, traumatic relation to the real qua maternal Thing. This
> nostalgic denial of individuation, as for Kristeva, positions the
> melancholic beyond the pale of symbolic intervention, unable to access
> in any way the historical reality of the social: “Stupefied,
> horrified, [the melancholic] fixes himself in an inhuman zone beyond
> death where, lacking the least symbolic recourse, he is condemned to
> remain eternally and passively concentrated on this gaping wound that
> he himself is” (1993, 54). [ibid](https://books.google.com/books?id=vvcit1tEOSMC&lpg=PA152&ots=gic6uj2sQW&dq=%22Duras%20is%20too%20depressed%20to%20be%20melancholic%22&pg=PA152#v=onepage&q=%22Duras%20is%20too%20depressed%20to%20be%20melancholic%22&f=false)

**Tags:** psychoanalysis

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: There isn't a scientific diagnosis of melancholic besides a subtype of depression that I am aware of; it's possible the term is used in pseudoscience. Your sources seem to use the term in the context of some sort of literary analysis, which also might use a different terminology. I think we probably can't answer what these authors are thinking here.  

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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2019-07-31. Score: 1

As Bryan indicates, this question is hardly answerable in the context of science. However, I can take a bash at it;

> Can anyone explain what she means by this? Isn't the melancholic, in the last analysis, the same as the depressed?

No, melancholy is more of a 'normal' emotional state, whereas depression is a debilitating mental illness associated with morbid symptoms and higher chances of suicide.

As to that other passage, I reckon that's really a biased, opinion-fueled statement with no relation whatsoever in science. To cite a part of the [wiki page on her](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Kristeva):

> Her [...] work includes [...] intertextuality, the semiotic, and abjection, in the fields of linguistics, literary theory and criticism, psychoanalysis, biography and autobiography, political and cultural analysis, art and art history.

These areas of expertise are quite far from science. Psychoanalysis comes closest, but even that is disputed in terms of not being embedded in evidence-based science.

> **Comments:**
> **username_3**: I wonder what is the take of the site on non-falsifiable statements/researches/fields, such as philosophy. I've seen questions and answers on this site that are fully about philosophy  

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