Academic literature on the topic 'Simone de Beauvoir'

Under denna rubrik gör Eva Lundgren här en kritisk läsning av två nyutkomna böcker om Simone de Beauvoir. Claude Francis och Fernande Gontiers biografi Simone de Beauvoir bygger - förutom på författarens egna memoarer - också på intervjuer och ett unikt brevmaterial. Boken ger en snabb överblick över de Beauvoirs liv och författarskap, men i jämförelse med de Beauvoirs egna självbiografiska texter står den sig slätt och har egentligen ingenting nytt att tillägga. Mary Evans bok Simone de Beauvoir, A Feminist Mandarin har karaktären av en uppgörelse med den moderna kvinnorörelsens grand old lady, skriver Eva Lundgren. Problemet med Evans arbetssätt är att hon avläser de Beauvoirs liv och verk efter en feministisk modell, som gör henne blind för komplexiteten i denna rika värld och som gör att hon ofta intar en moraliserande hållning gentemot de Beauvoir.

Abstract As the International Simone de Beauvoir Society celebrates the relaunch of Simone de Beauvoir Studies, the author looks back with gratitude to longtime editor Yolanda Patterson and reviews what the journal’s thirty-year history has to tell us about Beauvoir scholarship, past, present, and future. Topics discussed include the history of the Society; engagements with Beauvoir from the perspectives of literary criticism, philosophy, and the social sciences; and controversies over Beauvoir’s character, her response to the Occupation, her relationship to Sartre, and her legacy for feminism.

Abstract In this interview, Margaret A. Simons describes her path to philosophy and existentialism, her struggles in the male-dominated field in the 1960s and 1970s, and her political activism in the civil rights and women’s liberation movements. She also discusses her encounters with Simone de Beauvoir and Beauvoir’s refusal to own her philosophical originality, suggesting that Beauvoir may have adopted a more conventional narrative of a female intellectual to circumvent the public’s resistance to her radical ideas in the 1950s.

Resumen: Este es un primer intento de recoger yanalizar los sentidos que dio Simone de Beauvoir a suvida y a su escritura. Este texto realiza un recorrido porsus principales obras, especialmente por sus novelas,contrastándolas con sus Memorias, a fin de vislumbrarel por qué de la influencia histórica de esta autora en eldestino de muchas mujeres desde el siglo pasado. Seadvierte que esta es una tarea inconclusa porque laescritura de Simone de Beauvoir fue tan profusa que serequieren años para abarcar el contenido y adentrarseen profundidad en él.Palabras Claves: Simone de Beauvoir, escritura,novelas, memorias, mujer.Abstract: This text represents a first attempt atgathering and analyzing the meanings Simone deBeauvoir gave to her life and her writing. It covers hermajor works, especially her novels, contrasting them withher memoirs, in order to shed some light on the reasonsfor this author’s historic influence on the lives of manywomen in the past century. This task is acknowledged asincomplete, for Simone de Beauvoir’s writing was soprofuse that many years are required to grasp thecontents and to delve into them in depth.Key words: Simone de Beauvoir, writing, novels,memoirs, women.

Som intellektuell och högutbildad kvinna förkroppsligar Simone de Beauvoir en viktig aspekt av 1900-talets kvinnoemancipation. Toril Moi analyserar här hur litteraturvetarna har bemött Simone de Beauvoirs verk. Hon menar att dessa, med ironin som vapen, söker försvara sig mot den nya generationen politiskt engagerade och akademiskt skolade kvinnor.

This article considers the recent publications of French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, and offers an overview of contemporary scholarship in Beauvoir Studies. Beauvoir’s canonization in Gallimard’s La Pléiade collection in 2018 is discussed, specifically Gallimard’s choice of Beauvoir’s Mémoires for these first two volumes. Exploring the imbrication of Beauvoir’s philosophy with her own lived experience, the article traces what Annie Ernaux describes as the ‘running threads’ connecting us, namely the ways in which Beauvoir’s legacy is interwoven in our lives today. Surveying recent scholarship highlights the pertinence of Beauvoir’s work to contemporary contexts on issues ranging from sexual violence, subjective agency and female subjugation to emancipatory politics and transnational feminist solidarities. Thereafter, the importance Beauvoir placed on self–Other relations is explored in relation to scholarship on Beauvoir’s epistolary exchanges, the publication of her lost novella Les Inséparables, and on Beauvoir’s philosophy of alterity and old age in light of the pandemic.

In The Ethics of Ambiguity, Simone de Beauvoir makes reference to an “apprenticeship of freedom,” but she does not directly address why freedom requires an apprenticeship or what such an apprenticeship entails. Working from Beauvoir’s discussion of freedom in The Ethics of Ambiguity and her discussion of apprenticeships in The Second Sex, I explicate the idea of an apprenticeship of freedom, establishing why an apprenticeship is a necessary condition of freedom and describing how such an apprenticeship is administered. In doing so, I draw together two strands of thought within recent research on Beauvoir—first, that Beauvoir conceives of freedom as embodied and, second, that she conceives of freedom as interpersonal—to consider how adults’ interactions with a child either support or impede the realization of this child’s freedom.

The two series of correspondence between Simone de Beauvoir with both Élisabeth Lacoin (Zaza) and Maurice Merleau-Ponty – published in the volume Lettres d’amitié (Gallimard, 2022) – represent an essential contribution for several reasons. First, these letters offer the possibility of considering the friendship between Beauvoir and Lacoin; then, they also allow us to understand the essential role of Zaza in the development of Simone de Beauvoir’s philosophical and literary project. Finally, these letters also let us know Beauvoir’s attitude during a particular moment in her life that is to say the period when, while she was taking philosophy courses at the Sorbonne, she began to feel the need to write literature, which she discusses with Merleau-Ponty.

A la fin de adolescence, Simone de Beauvoir se détache de son origine bourgeoise et de sa foi catholique. Elle se défait du narcissisme qui était au départ de sa vocation d'écrivain. Jusqu'à la deuxième guerre mondiale, les questions socio-politiques ne la préoccupent guère. Elle fait l'expérience de l'existence d'autrui et des conditions de la liberté. Compagne de Sartre, elle adhère de tout son être à l'existentialisme. Elle surmonte son indifférence et renonce à l'" œuvre d'art " pour se consacrer à une littérature engagée. Elle est particulièrement touchée par la condition des femmes, puis celle des vieillards. Dans "Le deuxième Sexe" et "La vieillesse", elle analyse en profondeur leur aliénation et leur misère en donnant une image dramatiquement nouvelle. Ses idées ont violemment choqué, mais leur influence perdure. Nous avons tenté de montrer que Simone de Beauvoir a, sans concession, mis en œuvre, dans ses écrits et ses actes, sa pensée éthique, fondée sur la liberté et la responsabilité ; même quand ses révélations lui valaient une opposition haineuse et dangereuse. Elle a critiqué sans relâhe la société des " bien-pensants " et engagé son être tout entier au service de ses idées
In her late teens, Simone de Beauvoir distanced herself from her upper class bourgeois background, full of hypocrisies ; she rejected the catholic faith. She got rid of her narciccism, at the root of her writer's vocation. Until the Second War, social-political questions were out of her mind. But through personal events, she became aware of the Other and conditions for liberty. Partner of Jean Paul Sartre, she entirely embraced existentialism in her life and works. She devoted her efforts to commited literature in her novels and essays. She is more specifically concerned with women and elderly conditions. In Le deuxième sexe and La vieillesse, she analyses thoroughly the causes of women alienation and the miserable living conditions of elderly people ; she sheds on those subjects a dramatically new light. Her ideas were very shocking for the majority of people, but they were true and influenced until today. We tried to demonstrate that Simone de Beauvoir, without any concession, has put in practice her ethical thought based on liberty and responsability ; even when her revelations attracted hateful and dangerous relations. She commited herself without any compromise to her ideas

O nome de Simone de Beauvoir é frequentemente associado à luta do feminismo e à filosofia existencialista. Dotada de uma forte personalidade regida por ideais sociais e políticos bem definidos, esta escritora, com uma carreira multifacetada, inspirou vivas reacções através do seu projecto de escrita e das posições pessoais que tomou ao longo da sua vida. Habituámo-nos a vê-la envolvida na defesa dos mais elementares direitos humanos e testemunhámos a forma como o seu engagement condicionou a sua relação com Portugal. Tendo este trabalho como objectivo, ilustrar os vários aspectos da relação de Simone de Beauvoir com o nosso país, abordámos, com esse intuito, as visitas efectuadas por esta autora ao nosso país, dando a conhecer as diferentes facetas que as envolveram e, ao mesmo tempo, estabelecendo um paralelo com outros escritores franceses que visitaram Portugal e que se pronunciaram sobre ele, bem como com a imagem que a sua irmã, Hélène de Beauvoir, criou acerca de Portugal, não só através das suas telas, mas também da sua obra, Souvenirs. A análise do impacto que as suas visitas obtiveram na imprensa periódica portuguesa contribui para uma melhor compreensão da relação da escritora com o nosso país. Relativamente à representação de Portugal criada através da sua obra escrita, detivemo-nos especialmente sobre o romance Les Mandarins, não só devido à polémica que causou, mas também à notoriedade que alcançou; e pelo facto de aí, o episódio português assumir um maior destaque. Para além desta, analisámos outros textos como La Force des choses e La cérémonie des adieux, estabelecendo, sempre, uma correlação com as outras obras da escritora. Esta dissertação pretende, assim, iluminar a forma como Simone de Beauvoir viu o nosso país, desmistificando-a, ao mesmo tempo que demonstrando a sua complexidade. ABSTRACT: The name Simone de Beauvoir is frequently associated to the struggle of feminism and to the existentialist philosophy. Endowed with a strong personality driven by social and political ideals clearly defined, this writer, with a multifaceted career, inspired vived reactions through her writing project and her personal positions taken throughout her life. We got used to see her involved on the defense of the most basic human rights and we witnessed the way her engagement conditioned her relation with Portugal. Bearing in mind that this work has the objective of illustrating the several aspects of Simone de Beauvoir’s relation with our country, we approached, with that purpose, the visits made by this author to our country, revealing the different aspects that involved them and, at the same time, establishing a parallel with other French writers who visited Portugal and wrote about it, and the image of portugal that her sister, Hèlène de Beauvoir, created, not only, through her paintings, but also, through her book, Souvenirs. The analysis of the impact that her visits had on the portuguese regular press, contributed to a better understanding of the relation the writer had with our country. Concerning the representation of Portugal created by her writing, we focused specially on the novel Les Mandarins, not only due to the controversy it caused, but also due to the notoriety it reached and to the fact that, in this novel, the portuguese episode assumes greater relevance. Besides this one, we analyzed other works like La Force des choses and La cérémonie des adieux, always establishing a correlation with the other works of the writer. This dissertation wishes, by these means, to cast some light on how Simone de Beauvoir saw our country, demystifying her vision, as well as showing its complexity.

Simone de Beauvoir, a major figure in French intellectual life of the Twentieth Century, decided at a young age to be a creative writer. She did not publish her first work until the age of thirty five. During the years between 1929, when her academic studies were completed, and 1939 when she was engaged in writing L'invitée, a novel of whose value she was confident, she served in a conscious and determined manner a literary apprenticeship. Literature was to remain the dominant source of material, being more significant to her throughout most of this period than experience or imagination. Non-fiction informed about what was felt to be the 'real' world and fiction supplied literary models. During these years she wrote much, often in styles derived from current reading. In spite of the fact that she had received from family and school a thorough grounding in the literature of her own country, she ultimately rejected many of the examples or lessons which French texts proposed. It is possible that a dislike for literature by writers deemed 'bourgeois' was motivated by her repugnance for the values of her family and class. As a child Simone de Beauvoir had responded wholeheartedly to certain foreign books which offered possibilities of identification with heroines and situations. Throughout her apprentice years the same process of recognition was to be essential before she could derive sustenance from her reading. Much contemporary literature from abroad was published in French translation and it was to texts investigating new methods of narration or techniques of representing consciousness which she turned. By the time Simone de Beauvoir began L'invitée she had absorbed much from certain French authors, from detective fiction, from English novelists, from Kafka, but particularly from current American writers. She had assimilated the lessons derived from her literary preparation and was strong enough to write at last with a personal and independent voice.

Tese (doutorado)—Universidade de Brasília, Instituto de Ciências Humanas, Departamento de História, Programa de Pós-graduação em História, 2012.
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Entre 1958 e 1972, a escritora francesa Simone de Beauvoir (1908 – 1986) lançou quatro autobiografias, nas quais narra sua trajetória, do nascimento à velhice. Interessame nesta tese compreender como Beauvoir construiu e deixou registrada sua identidade autobiográfica, relacionando diferentes aspectos entre sua vida privada e sua vida pública, e apontando hipóteses sobre suas razões para apresentar-se da maneira que o fez. De início, tratei de trabalhar a relação entre sujeito e autobiografia. Como se pode definir uma autobiografia? Como situá-la entre outros tipos de narrativas autoreferenciais? Qual a importância deste tipo de narrativa para o saber histórico? O que se pode entender sobre o conceito de sujeito? Como Beauvoir se percebe enquanto tal? Em seguida, busquei concentrar a atenção no processo de construção da identidade autobiográfica seguido por Beauvoir. Ao longo de suas autobiografias, ela perseguia determinado fio condutor, certa unidade que justificasse sua identidade, além de seu nome próprio. Interessa-me justamente entender de que maneira Beauvoir construiu esta suposta unidade. Por fim, dediquei-me a compreender como o texto autobiográfico de Beauvoir foi utilizado como registro da alteridade. Destaquei a relação de Beauvoir com o outro em duas situações principais: a rivalidade observável no seio da intelectualidade francesa, evidenciada nas suas relações com Maurice Merleau-Ponty e Albert Camus, bem como na análise que a autobiógrafa fazia da recepção de suas obras pela crítica. Como Beauvoir representa seus adversários? Com quais intenções? Busquei trabalhar em torno de tais questões, o que permitiu perceber que subjetividade, identidade e alteridade formam os construtos conceituais-chave que norteiam este trabalho. Procuro entender, não somente a importância do sujeito na contemporaneidade, como também a da narrativa que o mesmo constrói sobre si, sobre o seu tempo e sobre o outro, para o conhecimento da experiência humana pelas disciplinas sociais, destacando a compreensão histórica na análise. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACT
Between 1958 and 1972, the French writer Simone de Beauvoir (1908 – 1986) had published four autobiographies, in which she tells her existential trajectory, from birth until oldness. In this thesis, I intend to understand how Beauvoir has constructed and how she has registered her autobiographic identity, underlining different aspects about her private and public life, as well as how she has pointed some hypotheses concerning reasons she had to present herself. I try to identify the path by means which she has made it. At the beginning, the matter consists in identify a possible relationship concerning Subject and Autobiography concepts. How can we define an autobiography? How can we identify it among different kinds of autobiographic referential narratives? Which is the importance of such a kind of narrative vis-à-vis historical knowledge? What can we know about Subject concept? How does Simone de Beauvoir perceive herseflf as a Subject? Further, I have taken into account the process of construction which Simone de Beauvoir has followed, in presenting her autobiographic identity. Throught her autobiographic narratives, we can observe the presence of a conducting wire, some unity justifying her identity, beyond her own name. I try precisely to understand how Beauvoir has constructed such a supposed unity. I try, at last, to understand how Beauvoir´s text was used as a register on otherness. I have undertaken underlining Beauvoir´s relationship to other in two main situations: the rivalry climate existing among French intellectuality, which was present in her relationship with Maurice Merleay-Ponty and Albert Camus, as well as in the analysis Simone de Beauvoir presented about Critique´s reception of her works. How did Beauvoir represent her adversaries? Which were her intentions about them? These question led me to understand that Identity, Otherness and Subjectivity were Beauvoir´s conceptual constructs-key which have inspirede her works. In this thesis, finally, I try to understand both the important role of the Subject in contemporaneous societies or the narrative path he constructs about himself, about his time and about the other, vis-â-vis Knowledge of human experience by means of scientific disciplines, especially historical understanding for analysis. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ RÉSUMÈ
Entre 1958 et 1972, l'écrivaine française Simone de Beauvoir (1908 – 1986) a fait publier quatre autobiographies, dans lesquelles elle nous raconte sa trajectoire, dês la naissance jusqu´à la vieillesse. Il m´intéresse, dans cette thèse, de comprendre comment Beauvoir a-t-elle construit et laissé enregistrée son identité (autobiographique), tout en associant de différents aspects entre sa vie privée et sa vie publique, en même temps qu´elle indique des hypothèses concernant les raisons qu´elle a eues pour se présenter de la façon dont elle se présente. J´ai, d´abord, tâché de travailler la relation entre sujet et autobiographie. Comment peut-on une definir une autobiographie ? Comment peut-on la mettre comme l´un parmi d´autres types de récits d´auto-référence ? Quelle l'importance de ce type de récit pour le savoir historique ? Qu´est-ce qu´on peut comprendre sur le concept de sujet ? Comment Beauvoir s´aperçoit-elle en tant que sujet? Ensuite, j'ai cherché à tenir l'attention sur le processus de construction de l'identité autobiographique suivi par Beauvoir. Au long de ses autobiographies, elle poursuivait un certain fil conducteur, une certaine unité en mesure de justifier son identité, au-delà de la force symbolique de son nom. Il m´intéresse précisement de comprendre comment Beauvoir a-t-elle construit cette prétendue unité. `Finalement, je me suis consacré à comprendre comment le texte autobiographique de Beauvoir a été utilisé en enrégistrement d´altérité. En même temps, j´ai mis en relief les rapports entretenus par Simone de Beauvoir avec l´autre dans deux situations principales: la rivalité observable au sein de l'intellectualité française, mise en évidence lors de ses relations avec Maurice Merleau-Ponty et Albert Camus, ainsi que dans l´analyse qu´elle faisait, en tant qu´autobiographe, de la réception de ses oeuvres par la critique. Comment Beauvoir représente-t-elle ses adversaires ? Avec quelles intentions ? À cette hauteur, j'ai cherché à travailler autour de telles questions, ce qui m´a permis de percevoir que subjectivité, identité et altérité forment les constructs conceptuels-clé qui guident ce travail. Je tenté, en outre, de comprendre pas seulement l'importance du sujet dans la contemporanéité, mais aussi celle concernant le récit que le même sujet construit sur lui-même, sur sur son temps et sur l´autre, pour la connaissance de l'expérience humaine par les disciplines sociales, tout en soulignant la compréhension historique dans l'analyse.

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A produção literária de Carmen da Silva (1919-1985), escritora feminista rio-grandina, revela ecos da leitura da obra da escritora e filósofa feminista francesa Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986). Esta dissertação de mestrado propõe a leitura e interpretação das obras O sangue dos outros (1945), de S. de Beauvoir, e Sangue sem dono (1964), de C. da Silva, sob a luz de teorias tais como a estética da recepção, intertextualidade, feminismo e existencialismo, no sentido de aproximá-las, no que diz respeito aos ecos da leitura de Beauvoir feita por C. da Silva, além de propor repensar as categorias literárias a que as obras eleitas pertencem.
The literary work of Carmen da Silva (1919-1985), a feminist writer from Rio Grande, reveals echoes of her reading of French feminist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir’s (1908-1986) work. This master’s thesis proposes the reading and interpretation of S. de Beauvoir’s O sangue dos outros (1945) and C. da Silva’s Sangue sem dono (1964), guided by theories such as reception theory, intertextuality, feminism and existentialism, in order to relate them, concerning the echoes of the reading of Beauvoir done by Carmen da Silva, as well as it proposes rethinking literary categories to which the works belong.

Feminist autobiography is a genre with long-standing literary and philosophical tradition, still some aspects, like, autobiography as “death writing” have come to scholarly attention as of relatively recent. The conceptual framework hinged on the concepts of “tanatography” (defined as an account of a person’s death) and “autotanatography” (defined as an account of one’s own death) makes it possible to take a fresh look into feminist writings from 19th and 20th centuries (Alice James and Simone de Beauvoir). Among the questions for the critical reflection we can mention the following ones: issues of memory and forgetting, of death of the significant other, of aging, of suicide, of literary death (ending the writing career path). Autothanatography is self-death-writing, instead of self-life-writing, even if death is an experience that cannot be had for oneself. The current article takes a look into the auto-death-writing of two women writers: Alice James (1848-1892) – a sister of William and Henry James and Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986). Although both women’s lives are set almost a century apart and none of them define herself as a feminist writer, their memoirs are written from the vantage point of imminent death. In the first case (James’s) we can speak of her posthumously published diaries, especially their second part written after she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Whereas in the latter (Beauvoir’s) case the autothanatological vibe is felt throughout the whole series of her memoirs (“Memoirs of a dutiful daughter”, “The prime of life”, “Force of circumstance”, “A very easy death”), but especially in the oeuvre “All is said and done” – the writing in anticipation of one’s death. The aspect that is common to both writers is that their memoirs exhibit the strategy of recollection, of re-reading their life events anew in the wake of the end (physical and/or authorial).

In her masterpiece, The Second Sex, French writer Simone de Beauvoir stated: "Human society is devoid of all natural elements. Females, like many others, are a product of civilization. " Other people's intervention in her fate was usually decisive. If we had acted in a different direction, a totally different outcome would have resulted. The status of women has improved with the times, but the existence of sexual injustice cannot be denied. Overt gender discrimination has decreased considerably, but gender injustice is not currently decreasing and is everywhere in schooling.