Synopses & Reviews
Situated at the crossroads of feminism, queer theory, and poststructuralist debates around identity, this is not a book about Simone de Beauvoir, but, rather, a book that addresses the different ways in which she is constructed as an intelligible "self" by academics, biographers and the media. It shows how key Western concepts such as individuality constrain attempts to deconstruct the self and prevent bisexuality being understood as an identity. Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari to see what this construction of bisexuality offers contemporary theories, it also critiques Foucault's work.
Review
"If any text marks the coming of age of bisexuality as an academic subject, Mariam Fraser's Identity Without Selfhood: Simone de Beauvoir and Bisexuality may be the one." Bi Books"Fraser's book makes a major contribution to recent scholarship in feminist, poststructural, and queer theories of subjectivity, the body, and identity..." Janet Wirth-Cauchon, American Journal of Sociology
Synopsis
Situated at the cross-roads of feminism, queer theory and post-structuralist debates around identity, this is not a book about Simone de Beauvoir, but, rather, a book which addresses the different ways in which she is constructed as an intelligible 'self' by academics, biographers and the media. It shows how key Western concepts like individuality constrain attempts to deconstruct the self and prevent bisexuality being understood as an identity. Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari to see what this construction of bisexuality offers contemporary theories, it also critiques Foucault's work.