Ursula Tidd

Simone de Beauvoir's groundbreaking work has transformed the way we think about gender and identity. Without her 1949 text The Second Sex, gender theory as we know it today would be unthinkable. A leading figure in French existentialism, Beauvoir's concepts of 'becoming woman' and of woman as 'Other' are among the most influential ideas in feminist enquiry and debate. This book guides the reader through the main areas of Simone de Beauvoir's thought, including: *existentialism and ethics *gender studies and feminism *literature and autobiography *sexuality, the body and ageing Drawing upon Beauvoir's literary and theoretical texts, this is the ideal introduction to her thought for students on a range of courses including literature, cultural studies, gender, philosophy and modern languages.

Simone de Beauvoir

Jean-Pierre Boulé

Simone de Beauvoir's work has not often been associated with film studies, which appears paradoxical when it is recognized that she was the first feminist thinker to inaugurate the concept of the gendered 'othering' gaze. This book is an attempt to redress this balance and reopen the dialogue between Beauvoir's writings and film studies. The authors analyse a range of films, from directors including Claire Denis, Michael Haneke, Lucille Hadzihalilovic, Sam Mendes, and Sally Potter, by drawing from Beauvoir's key works such as The Second Sex (1949), The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947) and Old Age (1970).

A Beauvoirian Perspective

Existentialism and Contemporary Cinema

Simone de Beauvoir's work has not often been associated with film studies. This is paradoxical when it is recognized that she was the first feminist thinker to inaugurate the concept of the gendered "othering" gaze. Moreover, other concepts associated with Beauvoirian existentialism such as ambiguity, gendered alienation, situated freedom, and woman as absolute Other are highly suggestive for reading screen culture. This book is an attempt to redress this balance and reopen the dialogue between Beauvoir's writings and film studies. The authors analyze a range of films, from directors including Claire Denis, Michael Haneke, Lucille Hadzihalilovic, Sam Mendes, and Sally Potter, by drawing from Beauvoir's key works such as The Second Sex (1949),The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947),and Old Age (1970). The breadth of this book demonstrates the extent to which "existential" themes transcend space and time, continue to resonate with contemporary stars and film directors, and add value and meaning to the basic questions about human existence, and the quest for "authenticity."

This is a full-length study exploring Simone de Beauvoir's autobiographical and biographical writings in the context of ideas on selfhood formulated in Le deuxième sexe and her other philosophical essays of the 1940s. Drawing on more recent work in autobiographical studies and working within a broadly Foucauldian framework, Ursula Tidd offers a detailed analysis of Beauvoir's auto/biographical strategy as a woman writer seeking to write herself into the male-constructed autobiographical canon. Tidd first analyses Beauvoir's notions of selfhood in her philosophical essays, and then discusses her four autobiographical and two biographical volumes, along with some of her unpublished diaries, in an attempt to explore notions of selectivity, and the politics of truth-production and reception. The study concludes that Beauvoir's vast auto/biographical project, situated in specific personal and historical contexts, can be read as shaped by a testimonial obligation rooted in a productive consciousness of the Other.

Simone de Beauvoir, Gender and Testimony

"The Spanish Communist exile and Francophone Holocaust writer Jorge Semprun (1923-) is a major contributor to contemporary debates on the politics and ethics of remembering the Franco era, Communism and the Holocaust in French, Spanish and broader European contexts. His sophisticated literary testimonies have become landmark texts not least for their commitment to represent the lived experience of history. In this first detailed study in English of Jorge Semprun's writing, Ursula Tidd shows how Semprun explores the parameters of self-writing as an address to the other in a richly intertextual corpus which weaves together history, fiction and auto/bio/thanatography, and gives voice to the traumatic experiences of geographical and political exile and concentration camp internment. Ursula Tidd is Senior Lecturer in French Studies at the University of Manchester, UK."

Writing the European Other

Jorge Semprun

Following its publication in 1949, The Second Sex quickly became one of the fundamental works of feminist thought. In it, Simone de Beauvoir (1908–86) offered up a statement that has informed nearly all feminist and gender scholarship that has followed, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” And it is the woman Beauvoir became who continues to fascinate, fostering a legend of coffee-drinking Parisian intellectuals debating existentialism in smoky cafes along the Left Bank. Beauvoir lived through some of the most dramatic and significant events of the twentieth century, and a time of enormous change for women across the world. Her personal and intellectual companions were one and the same—and as a result, her intimate relationships with Jean-Paul Sartre and Nelson Algren provide a captivating context to the development of her ideas. In this concise and up-to-date critical appraisal of both the life and words of Beauvoir, Ursula Tidd illuminates the many facets of the feminist icon’s complex personality, including her relentless autobiographical drive, which led her to envision her life as a continuously unfolding narrative, her active involvement in twentieth-century political struggles, and how Beauvoir the woman has over the decades become Beauvoir the myth. 2008 marked the centenary of Beauvoir’s birth, yet her ideas continue to reverberate throughout contemporary scholarship. This critical biography will benefit any reader seeking insight into one of the most prominent and intriguing intellectuals of the twentieth century.

Ursula Tidd

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