How to Read Beauvoir

How to Read...

by Stella Sandford, Simon Critchley (Series Editor)

“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”―Simone de Beauvoir The How to Read series provides a context and an explanation that will facilitate and enrich your understanding of texts vital to the canon. These books use excerpts from the major texts to explain essential topics, such as Simone de Beauvoir's investigation of social existence and identity, gender, sexuality, and old age.

To what extent does our social existence determine who we are? What is the meaning of sexuality for human existence? What is the meaning of “old age”? What is a woman? And what, for that matter, is a man? Stella Sandford explores the philosophical basis of Beauvoir’s reflections on these and other questions, from her early moral period, through her post-war philosophical crisis, to the astounding polymathic studies of her mature thought. She demonstrates the persistence of the fundamental existential and ethical questions that drove Beauvoir’s work and her constant revisions of her own positions.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

130 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great introduction to Simone de Beauvoir's writing. It consists of short extracts from several her books and essays, each discussed and enlarged on in brief chapters explaining her ideas clearly in the context of her work and life generally and the ideas of other philosophers. The samples here cover a wide breadth of topics, including anxiety, sex, vengeance, ambiguity and old age. It's a very useful initial signposting for choosing where next to explore her political, philosophical and literary output further.

[Leonardo]

Discutido en Sobre la Violencia Pág.91