Simone de Beauvoir, still a teen, began a diary while a philosophy student at the Sorbonne. Written in 1926-27-before Beauvoir met Jean-Paul Sartre-the diaries reveal previously unknown details about her life and times and offer critical insights into her early intellectual interests, philosophy, and literary works. Presented for the first time in translation, this fully annotated first volume of the Diary includes essays from Barbara Klaw and Margaret A. Simons that address its philosophical, historical, and literary significance. It remains an invaluable resource for tracing the development of Beauvoir's independent thinking and her influence on philosophy, feminism, and the world.

Simone de Beauvoir, still a teen, began a diary while a philosophy student at the Sorbonne. Written in 1926-27-before Beauvoir met Jean-Paul Sartre-the diaries reveal previously unknown details about her life and times and offer critical insights into her early intellectual interests, philosophy, and literary works. Presented for the first time in translation, this fully annotated first volume of the Diary includes essays from Barbara Klaw and Margaret A. Simons that address its philosophical, historical, and literary significance. It remains an invaluable resource for tracing the development of Beauvoir's independent thinking and her influence on philosophy, feminism, and the world.

Political Writings offers an abundance of newly translated essays by Simone de Beauvoir that demonstrate a heretofore unknown side of her political philosophy. The writings in this volume range from Beauvoir's surprising 1952 defense of the misogynistic eighteenth-century pornographer, the Marquis de Sade, to a co-written 1974 documentary film, transcribed here for the first time, which draws on Beauvoir's analysis of how socioeconomic privilege shapes the biological reality of aging. The volume traces nearly three decades of Beauvoir's leftist political engagement, from exposes of conditions in fascist Spain and Portugal in 1945 and hard-hitting attacks on right-wing French intellectuals in the 1950s, to the 1962 defense of an Algerian freedom fighter, Djamila Boupacha, and a 1975 article arguing for what is now called the "two-state solution" in Israel. Together these texts prefigure Beauvoir's later feminist activism and provide a new interpretive context for reading her multi-volume autobiography, while also shedding new light on French intellectual history during the turbulent era of decolonization.

In a compelling chronicle of her search to understand Beauvoir's philosophy in The Second Sex, Margaret A. Simons offers a unique perspective on BeauvoirOs wide-ranging contribution to twentieth-century thought. She details the discovery of the origins of Beauvoir's existential philosophy in her handwritten diary from 1927; uncovers evidence of the sexist exclusion of Beauvoir from the philosophical canon; reveals evidence that the African-American writer Richard Wright provided Beauvoir with the theoretical model of oppression that she used in The Second Sex; shows the influence of The Second Sex in transforming Sartre's philosophy and in laying the theoretical foundations of radical feminism; and addresses feminist issues of racism, motherhood, and lesbian identity. Simons also draws on her experience as a WomenOs Liberation organizer as she witnessed how women used The Second Sex in defining the foundations of radical feminism. Bringing together her work as both activist and scholar, Simons offers a highly original contribution to the renaissance of Beauvoir scholarship.

The philosopher's writings on, and engagement with, twentieth century feminism By turns surprising and revelatory, this sixth volume in the Beauvoir Series presents newly discovered writings and lectures while providing new translations and contexts for Simone de Beauvoir's more familiar writings. Spanning Beauvoir's career from the 1940s through 1986, the pieces explain the paradoxes in her political and feminist stances, including her famous 1972 announcement of a "conversion to feminism" after decades of activism on behalf of women.Feminist Writings documents and contextualizes Beauvoir's thinking, writing, public statements, and activities in the services of causes like French divorce law reform and the rights of women in the Iranian Revolution. In addition, the volume provides new insights into Beauvoir's complex thinking and illuminates her historic role in linking the movements for sexual freedom, sexual equality, homosexual rights, and women's rights in France.

Written between the age of eighteen and twenty-one, the entries in the third volume of Diary of a Philosophy Student take readers into Simone de Beauvoir’s thoughts while illuminating the people and ideas swirling around her. The pages offer rare insights into Beauvoir’s intellectual development; her early experiences with love, desire, and freedom; and relationships with friends like Élisabeth “Zaza” Lacoin, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. It also presents Beauvoir’s shocking account of Jean-Paul Sartre’s sexual assault of her during their first sexual encounter--a revelation certain to transform views of her life and philosophy. In addition, the editors include a wealth of important supplementary material. Barbara Klaw provides a detailed consideration of the Diary’s role in the development of Beauvoir’s writing style by exploring her use of metanarrative and other literary techniques, part of a process of literary creation that saw Beauvoir use the notebooks to cultivate her talent. Margaret A. Simons’s essay places the assault by Sartre within an appraisal of Beauvoir’s complicated legacy for #MeToo while suggesting readers engage with the diary through the lens of trauma.

"The Useless Mouths" and Other Literary Writings brings to English-language readers literary writings--several previously unknown--by Simone de Beauvoir. Culled from sources including various American university collections, the works span decades of Beauvoir's career. Ranging from dramatic works and literary theory to radio broadcasts, they collectively reveal fresh insights into Beauvoir's writing process, personal life, and the honing of her philosophy. The volume begins with a new translation of the 1945 play The Useless Mouths, written in Paris during the Nazi occupation. Other pieces were discovered after Beauvoir's death in 1986, such as the 1965 short novel "Misunderstanding in Moscow," involving an elderly French couple who confront their fears of aging. Two additional previously unknown texts include the fragmentary "Notes for a Novel," which contains the seed of what she later would call "the problem of the Other," and a lecture on postwar French theater titled Existentialist Theater. The collection notably includes the eagerly awaited translation of Beauvoir's contribution to a 1965 debate among Jean-Paul Sartre and other French writers and intellectuals, "What Can Literature Do?" Prefaces to well-known works such as Bluebeard and Other Fairy Tales,La Batarde, and James Joyce in Paris: His Final Years are also available in English for the first time, alongside essays and other short articles. A landmark contribution to Beauvoir studies and French literary studies, the volume includes informative and engaging introductory essays by prominent and rising scholars. Contributors are Meryl Altman, Elizabeth Fallaize, Alison S. Fell, Sarah Gendron, Dennis A. Gilbert, Laura Hengehold, Eleanore Holveck, Terry Keefe, J. Debbie Mann, Frederick M. Morrison, Catherine Naji, Justine Sarrot, Liz Stanley, Ursula Tidd, and Veronique Zaytzeff.

Despite growing interest in her philosophy, Simone de Beauvoir remains widely misunderstood. She is typically portrayed as a mere intellectual follower of her companion, Jean-Paul Sartre. In Philosophical Writings, Beauvoir herself shows that nothing could be further from the truth. Beauvoir's philosophical work suffers from a lack of English-language translation or, worse, mistranslation into heavily condensed popular versions. Philosophical Writings provides an unprecedented collection of complete, scholarly editions of philosophical texts that cover the first twenty-three years of Beauvoir's career, including a number of recently discovered works. Ranging from metaphysical literature to existentialist ethics, Philosophical Writings brings together diverse elements of Beauvoir's work while highlighting continuities in the development of her thought. Each of the translations features detailed notes and a scholarly introduction explaining its larger significance. Revelatory and long overdue, Philosophical Writings adds to the ongoing resurgence of interest in Beauvoir's thought and to her growing influence on today's philosophical curriculum.

Simone de Beauvoir, still a teen, began a diary while a philosophy student at the Sorbonne. Written in 1926-27—before Beauvoir met Jean-Paul Sartre—the diaries reveal previously unknown details about her life and times and offer critical insights into her early intellectual interests, philosophy, and literary works. Presented for the first time in translation, this fully annotated first volume of the Diary includes essays from Barbara Klaw and Margaret A. Simons that address its philosophical, historical, and literary significance. It remains an invaluable resource for tracing the development of Beauvoir’s independent thinking and her influence on philosophy, feminism, and the world.

This volume aims at nothing less than the transformation of Simone de Beauvoir's place in the philosophical canon. Despite growing interest her philosophy, Beauvoir remains widely misunderstood and is typically portrayed as a mere philosophical follower of her companion, Jean-Paul Sartre. In Philosophical Writings, Beauvoir herself shows that nothing could be further from the truth. One factor contributing to misunderstanding has been the lack of English translations of much of Beauvoir's philosophical work, or worse--its mistranslation in heavily condensed, popular editions. Philosophical Writings addresses this source of misunderstanding by providing complete, scholarly editions of Beauvoir's philosophical texts covering the first twenty-three years of her work, including some only recently discovered. Ranging from metaphysical literature to essays on existentialist ethics, Philosophical Writings brings together diverse elements of Beauvoir's work while highlighting continuities in the development of her thought. Each of the translations features detailed notes and a scholarly introduction explaining its larger significance. Philosophical Writings is a major contribution to the r

The philosopher's writings on, and engagement with, twentieth century feminism By turns surprising and revelatory, this sixth volume in the Beauvoir Series presents newly discovered writings and lectures while providing new translations and contexts for Simone de Beauvoir's more familiar writings. Spanning Beauvoir's career from the 1940s through 1986, the pieces explain the paradoxes in her political and feminist stances, including her famous 1972 announcement of a "conversion to feminism" after decades of activism on behalf of women.Feminist Writings documents and contextualizes Beauvoir's thinking, writing, public statements, and activities in the services of causes like French divorce law reform and the rights of women in the Iranian Revolution. In addition, the volume provides new insights into Beauvoir's complex thinking and illuminates her historic role in linking the movements for sexual freedom, sexual equality, homosexual rights, and women's rights in France.

Provocative insights into Beauvoir's philosophical and personal development during wartime Written from September 1939 to January 1941, Simone de Beauvoir's Wartime Diary gives English readers unabridged access to a scandalous text that threatened to overturn traditional views of Beauvoir's life and work. Beauvoir's clandestine affair with Jacques Bost and sexual relationships with various young women challenge the conventional picture of Beauvoir as the devoted companion of Jean-Paul Sartre. At the same time, her account of completing her novel She Came to Stay at a time when Sartre had just begun Being and Nothingness questions the traditional view of Beauvoir's novel as merely illustrating Sartre's philosophy. Wartime Diary also traces Beauvoir's philosophical transformation as she broke from the prewar solipsism of She Came to Stay in favor of the postwar political engagement of The Second Sex. Beauvoir's emerging existentialist ethics reflect the dramatic collective experiences of refugees fleeing German invasion and life under Nazi occupation. The evolution of her thought also reveals the courageous reaffirmation of her individuality in constructing a humanist ethics of freedom and solidarity. This edition also features previously unpublished material, including her musings about consciousness and order, recommended reading lists, and notes on labor unions. In providing new insights into Beauvoir's philosophical development, the Wartime Diary promises to rewrite a crucial chapter of Western philosophy and intellectual history.

Provocative insights into Beauvoir's philosophical and personal development during wartime Written from September 1939 to January 1941, Simone de Beauvoir's Wartime Diary gives English readers unabridged access to a scandalous text that threatened to overturn traditional views of Beauvoir's life and work. Beauvoir's clandestine affair with Jacques Bost and sexual relationships with various young women challenge the conventional picture of Beauvoir as the devoted companion of Jean-Paul Sartre. At the same time, her account of completing her novel She Came to Stay at a time when Sartre had just begun Being and Nothingness questions the traditional view of Beauvoir's novel as merely illustrating Sartre's philosophy. Wartime Diary also traces Beauvoir's philosophical transformation as she broke from the prewar solipsism of She Came to Stay in favor of the postwar political engagement of The Second Sex. Beauvoir's emerging existentialist ethics reflect the dramatic collective experiences of refugees fleeing German invasion and life under Nazi occupation. The evolution of her thought also reveals the courageous reaffirmation of her individuality in constructing a humanist ethics of freedom and solidarity. This edition also features previously unpublished material, including her musings about consciousness and order, recommended reading lists, and notes on labor unions. In providing new insights into Beauvoir's philosophical development, the Wartime Diary promises to rewrite a crucial chapter of Western philosophy and intellectual history.

Since her death in 1986 and the publication of her letters and diaries in 1990, interest in the philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir has never been greater. In this engaging and timely volume, Margaret A. Simons and an international group of philosophers present 16 essays that reveal Beauvoir as one of the century s most important and influential thinkers. As they set Beauvoir s work into dialogue with Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger, Foucault, Levinas, and others, these essays consider questions such as Beauvoir s philosophical relationship with Sartre; her ethic of the erotic; her views on marriage, motherhood, and female friendship; and her interpretations of oppression and liberation. This book discusses the full range of Beauvoir s work, including The Second Sex, her unpublished diaries, autobiographical writings, novels, and philosophical essays, and broadens the scope and interpretive context of her unique philosophy.

Contributors are Nancy Bauer, Debra Bergoffen, Suzanne Laba Cataldi, Edward Fullbrook, Eva Gothlin, Sara Heinamaa, Laura Hengehold, Stacy Keltner, Michele Le Doeuff, Ann Murphy, Shannon M. Mussett, Margaret A. Simons, Ursula Tidd, Andrea Veltman, Karen Vintges, Julie Ward, Gail Weiss."

For almost twenty years, feminist readings of Simone de Beauvoir's feminist classic The Second Sex have been dominated by dismissive interpretation of Beauvoir's philosophy as Sartrean and phallocentric. Beauvoir's angry refusal to acknowledge either her philosophical originality or her lesbian relationships led to an interpretive impasse on two issues: her relationship to existentialism and her relationship to feminism. It was not until Beauvoir's death in 1986 that this interpretive impasse would be broken. Feminist scholars reacted to news of Beauvoir's death in 1986 by initiating a reevaluation of her life's work, a task encouraged by Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir, her adopted daughter, who edited for posthumous publication many of Beauvoir's personal notebooks and letters to Sartre. Some of the most exciting new interpretations of Beauvoir's philosophy that have resulted are brought together here for the first time; many of them, indeed, were written expressly for this first volume of essays on Beauvoir's philosophy written since her death.

From phenomenology and literary criticism to analytic philosophy and postmodern deconstruction, this collection presents a unique variety of methodological approaches to reading Beauvoir: placing her within the phenomenological tradition and identifying the Husserlean influence on her work; using the posthumously published letters and notebooks to shed light on Beauvoir's own experience of oppression and to deconstruct the philosophical movement that exploited her; analyzing the themes and structure of Beauvoir's novel The Mandarins to study her philosophy of the erotic; examining the structure of her argument about women's biology and sexual difference to challenge the criticism of Beauvoir's phallocentricism; locating her writings on decolonization as a historical antecedent of the postmodern philosophy of destruction. Of particular interest may be the scholarly reading of little-known texts, such as Beauvoir's essay on the Marquis de Sade, or her essay "Literature and Metaphysics," in the context of her better-known texts, such as Ethics of Ambiguity, to trace Beauvoir's philosophical development and challenge the view that Beauvoir was either Sartrean or phallocentric.

Revelatory insights into the early life and thought of the preeminent French feminist philosopher
Dating from her years as a philosophy student at the Sorbonne, this is the 1926-27 diary of the teenager who would become the famous French philosopher, author, and feminist, Simone de Beauvoir. Written years before her first meeting with Jean-Paul Sartre, these diaries reveal previously unknown details about her life and offer critical insights into her early philosophy and literary works. Presented here for the first time in translation and fully annotated, the diary is completed by essays from Barbara Klaw and Margaret A. Simons that address its philosophical, historical and literary significance. The volume represents an invaluable resource for tracing the development of Beauvoir's independent thinking and influence on the world.

The first issues of the journal Hypatia, published from 1983 through 1985, truly heralded the rebirth of a feminist philosophy. Women in philosophy had been silenced since the days of the fourth-century Alexandrian woman philosopher and mathematician, Hypatia. With the establishment of the journal by the Society for Women in Philosophy (SWIP), feminist issues and philosophy were legitimized. The first three issues of the journal were actually published as special issues of Women's Studies International Forum. From this unique incubational arrangement, the journal has grown to be a successful independent voice for feminist philosophical concerns. In response to demand, essays from those early, now out-of-print issues are being published in book form as a testament to the rebirth of feminist philosophy.

Political Writings offers an abundance of newly translated essays by Simone de Beauvoir that demonstrate a heretofore unknown side of her political philosophy. The writings in this volume range from Beauvoir's surprising 1952 defense of the misogynistic eighteenth-century pornographer, the Marquis de Sade, to a co-written 1974 documentary film, transcribed here for the first time, which draws on Beauvoir's analysis of how socioeconomic privilege shapes the biological reality of aging. The volume traces nearly three decades of Beauvoir's leftist political engagement, from exposes of conditions in fascist Spain and Portugal in 1945 and hard-hitting attacks on right-wing French intellectuals in the 1950s, to the 1962 defense of an Algerian freedom fighter, Djamila Boupacha, and a 1975 article arguing for what is now called the "two-state solution" in Israel. Together these texts prefigure Beauvoir's later feminist activism and provide a new interpretive context for reading her multi-volume autobiography, while also shedding new light on French intellectual history during the turbulent era of decolonization.