By paying particular attention to sexual difference, my investigation of female genius has led me, in short, to go beyond the dichotomy of the sexes, to distance myself from the initial presupposition of a binary sexual system. This has been made possible not only because psychical bisexuality seemed to me to be a fact that applies to both sexes, with the dominant factor varying between sexes and between individuals. Nor is it possible just because each individually constructed sexual identity deviates from some standard. These factors are relevant, but finally and most importantly what allows us to overcome the traditional, binary model of sexuality is the fact that creativity, when developed to the full in genius, pushes this deviation from the standard to its furthest limit and to the highest degree of uniqueness, which is nevertheless something that can be shared. At the heart of the precarious solitude of their pioneering work, which was the price they paid for their unique creativity, Arendt, Klein, and Colette managed to create the conditions that give rise to a necessarily public opinion and, why not, a school and, at best, create an effect of seduction that solicits a communion of readings and a community of readers.

The sexual, social, and political liberation of women and their entry into various intellectual and professional domains in the modern polity raises the question of their equality or their difference with regard to men. This was the central question of the twentieth century. However, the third millennium will be the millennium of individual opportunities, or it will not be (here I'm making an allusion to André Malraux, who famously said that the twenty-first century would be a spiritual century, or would not be). I've tried, with my three-volume study, to go beyond the well-worn approach to these questions, which sought to define fixed sexual identities. And, beyond the sexual polymorphism that is already appearing in the global era—to the extent that it is raising questions concerning not only our identity but also the idea of the couple and of natural procreation—I would like to think that each individual invents his or her sex in the domain of intimacy. Therein lies genius, which is quite simply creativity.

So, is there a feminine genius? The example of twentieth-century women has made it difficult to avoid the question. And it has led us to consider that the anxiety over the feminine has been the communal experience that has allowed our civilization to reveal, in a new way, the incommensurability of the individual. This incommensurability is rooted in sexual experience but nonetheless is realized through the risks that each of us is prepared to take by calling into question thought, language, one's own age, and any identity that resides in them. You are a genius to the extent that you are able to challenge the sociohistorical conditions of your identity. This is the legacy of Arendt, Klein, and Colette.

"This material is excerpted from Colette by Julia Kristeva. Copyright © 2002 Librairie Arthème Fayard; Translation Copyright © 2004 Julia Kristeva. Used by arrangement with Columbia University Press. All rights reserved."