Synopses & Reviews
As the existentialist philosophers of mid-twentieth-century Parisfamously asserted, a life can only be assessed fully after it has ended. Fitting, then, that since her death in 1986, the philosopher and novelist Simone de Beauvoirhas been the subject of numerous attempts to evaluate her contributions tointellectual thought. With the uncovering of her early diaries and the recentpublication of her passionate letters to Nelson Algren, she has become more than atowering figure of twentieth-century feminism. She is at once an intensely humanfigure and a fertile field for application of various sexual constructs and forargument over feminist principles.
Edited byMelanie C. Hawthorne, this volume brings into play a variety of fresh voices, from aSwedish novelist and advice columnist to an interdisciplinary theorist of decadence.The essays address the multitude of issues arising from the affective, personal, political, and sexual dimensions of Beauvoir's life and work. Fifty years after thepublication of The Second Sex, Contingent Loves offers a wide-ranging discussion ofthe immeasurable impact Simone de Beauvoir has had on feministdiscourse.
Contents: - TranslationEffects: How Beauvoir Talks Sex in English, Luise Von Flotow, University of Ottawa- Variations on Triangular Relationships, Serge Julienne-Caffi, Philadelphia, Pa. - Le on de Philo/Lesson in Love: Simone de Beauvoir'sIntellectual Passion and the Mobilization of Desire, Melanie C. Hawthorne, TexasA&M University - Sensuality and Brutality: Contradictions inSimone de Beauvoir's Writings about Sexuality, Asa Moberg, Sweden- Simone de Beauvoir and Nelson Algren: Self-Creation, Self-Contradiction, and the Exotic, Erotic Feminist Other, Barbara Klaw, Northern Kentucky University- Simone de Beauvoir on Henry de Montherlant: A Map of Misreading?Richard J. Golsan, Texas A&M University - 'Le Prototype de la FadeR p tition': Beauvoir and Butler on the Work of Abjection in Repetitions andReconfigurations of Gender, Liz Constable, University of California, Davis