This book is not only a major twentieth-century contribution to Dostoevsky’s studies, but also one of the most important theories of the novel produced in our century. As a modern reinterpretation of poetics, it bears comparison with Aristotle.“Bakhtin’s statement on the dialogical nature of artistic creation, and his differentiation of this from a history of monological commentary, is profoundly original and illuminating. This is a classic work on Dostoevsky and a statement of importance to critical theory.” Edward Wasiolek“Concentrating on the (...) particular features of ‘Dostoevskian discourse,’ how Dostoevsky structures a hero and a plot, and what it means to write dialogically, Bakhtin concludes with a major theoretical statement on dialogue as a category of language. One of the most important theories of the novel in this century.” The Bloomsbury Review. (shrink)

For the second edition of her landmark study of Simone de Beauvoir, Toril Moi provides a major new introduction discussing current developments in Beauvoir studies as well as the recent publication of papers and letters by Beauvoir, including her letters to her lovers Jacques-Laurent Bost and Nelson Agren, and her student diaries from 1926-7.

The title question becomes a rabbit-hole through which we tumble in search of an answer, encountering everyone from Herodotus to Humphrey Bogart along the way. Is History Fiction? is an invaluable guide on how to weld creative thinking and sound research into meaningful history, and how to understand the different arguments that have abounded throughout time regarding the nature of history. More than a book of theory about theory, this innovative work is an asset to the undergraduate classroom and the (...) research seminar alike. Is History Fiction? will be a welcome aid for teaching historical writing and examining an age-old question. Is History Fiction? is a must-read for undergraduate and graduate students and scholars from the humanities and social sciences, or anyone grappling with the enduring issues that have shaped the theory and practice of recording history. (shrink)

Required reading for anyone who believes in the equality of the sexes. A long awaited, highly acclaimed new translation of Simone De Beauvoir's landmark work.

Pleidooi voor de emancipatie van de vrouw.

"To be a philosopher and to be a feminist are one and the same thing. A feminist is a woman who does not allow anyone to think in her place."-from _Hipparchia's Choice_ A work of rare insight and irreverence, _Hipparchia's Choice_ boldly recasts the history of philosophy from the pre-Socratics to the post-Derrideans as one of masculine texts and male problems. The position of women, therefore, is less the result of a hypothetical "femininity" and more the fault of exclusion by (...) men. Nevertheless, women have been and continue to be drawn to "the exercise of thought." So how does a female philosopher become a conceptually adventurous woman? Focusing on the work of Sartre and Beauvoir (specifically, his sexism and her relation to it), Michèle Le Doeuff shows how women philosophers can reclaim a place for feminist concerns. Is _The Second Sex_ a work of philosophy, and, if so, what can it teach us about the relation of philosophy to experience? Now with a new epilogue, _Hipparchia's Choice_ points the way toward a discipline that is accountable to history, feminism, and society. (shrink)

Examining the impact of feminism on ordinary Australian women, the author argues that the impact of feminism on women's lives has been significant, even though many of the women whose lives have changed because of its influence shun the term "feminist", or find feminism irrelevant.

"In order to write" said Simone de Beauvoir, "the first essential condition is that reality can no longer be taken for granted." She and four other French women writers of the second half of the twentieth century—Nathalie Sarraute, Marguerite Duras, Monique Wittig, and Maryse Condé—illustrate that producing autobiography is like performing a tightrope act on the slippery line between fact and fiction. Autobiographical Tightropes emphasizes the tension in the works of these major writers as they move in and out of (...) "experience" and "literature," violating the neat boundaries between genres and confusing the distinctions between remembering and creating. Focusing on selected works, Leah D. Hewitt for the first time anywhere explores the connections among the authors. In doing so she shows how contemporary women's autobiography in France links with feminist issues, literary tradition and trends, and postmodern theories of writing. In light of these theories Hewitt offers a new reading of de Beauvoir's memoirs and reveals how her attempt to represent the past faithfully is undone by irony, by literary and "feminine" detours. Other analysts of Nathalie Sarraute's writing have dwelt mainly on formal considerations of the New Novel, but Hewitt exposes a repressed, forbidden feminine aspect in her literary innovations. Unlike Sarraute, Duras cannot be connected with just one literary movement, political stance, style, or kind of feminism because her writing, largely autobiographical, is marked by chameleon like transformations. The chapters on Wittig and Condé show how, within the bounds of feminism, lesbians and women of color challenge the individualistic premises of autobiography. Hewitt demonstrates that, despite vast differences among these five writers, all of them reveal in their autobiographical works the self's need of a fictive other. (shrink)

Indispensable for students of Beauvoir’s philosophy and existentialism, Vintges’s book will prove valuable as well in courses on ethics, postmodernism, and feminist theory." —Ethics "... a highly informative book." —Teaching ...

First published in 1976, “It Changed My Life” is a compellingly readable collection of reports from the front, back in the days less than a generation ago when women were routinely shut out of the professions and higher education, underpaid, condescended to, and harassed without consequences to the harassers. The book describes the political campaigns for equal pay and job opportunities, for the outlawing of sex discrimination, for the Equal Rights Amendment, and for legalized abortion, the creation of National Organization (...) for Women, the National Abortion Rights Action League, and the National Women’s Political Caucus, and analyzes the antifeminist backlashes. Encounters with Simone de Beauvoir and Indira Gandhi are juxtaposed with moving and vivid personal struggles of many ordinary women. Among those women was Friedan herself, who frankly recorded her astonishment, gratification, and anger as the movement she helped create grew beyond all her hopes, and then raced beyond her control into a sexual politics she found disturbing. (shrink)

This article is a "review of reviews," a study of the critical response to Simone de Beauvoir's book, The Second Sex , published in 1949; it also reports the publishing history and provides some statistical information on the criticism and citations of the book. The claim here is that Beauvoir's work is a "classic" appreciated for its theoretical notion of "woman as absolute Other" and its accompanying description of patriarchal culture as a reflection of that notion. But it is a (...) classic with a mercurial past. Though the book and its author were severely attacked following its French publication, the work received positive reviews four years later upon its translation into English. Yet until the onset of the feminist movement, Beauvoir's ideas were largely ignored. However, upon the development of feminist activism followed by feminist scholarship and feminist theory, the book's analysis quickly took on a foundational status. A survey of the criticism of the book provides insight into the history of contemporary feminist theory, for nearly all of the serious debates of contemporary feminism are reflected in the critical discussion of The Second Sex. (shrink)

This book presents a post-structuralist-queer theory of the self drawing on representations of de Beauvoir and her bisexuality.