Treats the historical, philosophical, and literary dimensions of Simone de Beauvoir's thought. This work locates her work in the intellectual and political upheavals that marked Paris in the 1930s and 1940s, and analyses her philosophical links to 17th-century rationalism, and to Kant, Hegel, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, Simone Weil, and Heidegger.

This collection of new essays treats the historical, philosophical, and literary dimensions of Simone de Beauvoir's thought, and celebrates the 50th anniversary of her most influential book, The Second Sex. A team of distinguished philosophers and literary critics locate her work in the intellectual and political upheavals that marked Paris in the 1930s and 1940s; analyze her philosophical links to 17th century rationalism, and to Kant, Hegel, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, Simone Weil, and Heidegger; and study the connections between her philosophical and literary writings. Above all, the collection tackles the relationship between theory and concrete situation with fresh insight and renewed urgency.

contains a well-balanced range of essays that are both richly personal and critically passionate...Especially for scholars and students reading Beauvoir in English translation, the collection will serve as a convicting reminder of the limitations of the Parshley translation and can seve to expose for students the constructed and fallible nature of the production of the philosophical canon. Indeed, the text should lend itself wonderfully to the classroom, with its threefold emphasis on the historical, literary, and philosophical contexts of The Second Sex.