Simone De Beauvoir: A Toolkit for the 21st Century Husserl Archives

This talk focuses on the ambiguous dimensions of the year 2020 from the standpoint of a Black American feminist philosopher. Inheriting the  existential phenomenological concept of ambiguity from Simone de  Beauvoir, Qrescent Mali Mason seeks  in this final episode to map the ambiguities in Beauvoir’s work and life, and in the legacies of feminist thinkers like Beauvoir, who are complex,  complicated, brilliant, and also ambiguous.



The discussion is moderated by Julia Jansen. This podcast is hosted by Ashika Singh and Liesbeth Schoonheim



More reading....

Simone de Beauvoir. 2015 [1947]. The Ethics of Ambiguity. Translated by Bernard Frechtman. New York: Open Road Media.

Audre Lorde. 2019 [19884]. Sister Outsider. Penguin UK.

Online initiative "I Didn't Ask for It" (#nisamtrazila) started in  January 2021 in Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Slovenia,  motivated by a public confession of a young Serbian actress of being raped by a well-known Belgrade drama pedagogue. In today's lecture, Ana Maskalan offers a feminist analysis of the evolution of the above-mentioned initiative (followed by a silencing backlash) and of the socio-cultural and political context that makes it unique. How can we understand this social movement, drawing on Simone de Beauvoir's understanding of the myth of femininity and the ideas of complicity,  solidarity, violence, and of sex and sexual autonomy?

The discussion is moderated by Nidesh Lawtoo. This podcast is hosted by Ashika Singh and Liesbeth Schoonheim



Reading more...

Simone de Beauvoir.. 2011 [1949]. The Second Sex. Translated by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevalier. New York: Vintage Books.

Simone de Beauvoir. 2011 [1959]. “Brigitte Bardot and the Lolita Syndrome.” In Feminist Writings, edited by Margaret A. Simons and Marybeth Timmermann, translated by Bernard Frechtman, 114–25. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Simone de Beauvoir. 2012 [1962]. “Preface to Djamila Boupacha.” In Political Writings, edited by Margaret Simons and Marybeth Timmermann, translated by Marybeth Timmermann, 272–82. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

In 1959, Simone de Beauvoir wrote a little-read essay on Brigitte Bardot, describing her as the new myth of feminity that troubles French notions of womanhood. In this episode, Catherine Raissiguier asks what BB and Beauvoir can teach us today about France's national self-understanding, as BB troubles us even more today due to her right-wing politics. 



The discussion is moderated by Nidesh Lawtoo, and this podcast is hosted by Ashika Singh and Liesbeth Schoonheim





More reading....

Simone de Beauvoir. 2011 [1959]. “Brigitte Bardot and the Lolita Syndrome.” In Feminist Writings, edited by Margaret A. Simons and Marybeth Timmermann, translated by Bernard Frechtman, 114–25. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

La Vieillesse (1970) is Beauvoir's groundbreaking work on old age, in which she describes the silencing that befalls the old. This oppressive silence still continues today, as Sonia Kruks argues in this lecture. Showing how we can benefit from Beauvoir to understand how the domination of the old is perpetuated in contemporary society, Sonia Kruks also stresses that old age has to be included in feminist, intersectional analyses of politics and power relationships. 

The discussion is moderated by Maren Wehrle, and the series is hosted by Ashika Singh and Liesbeth Schoonheim.



More reading.....

Simone de Beauvoir. 1977 [1970]. Old Age. Penguin Books.

Kate Kirkpatrick. 2014. “Past Her Prime? Simone de Beauvoir on Motherhood and Old Age.” Sophia 53 (2): 275–87. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-014-0410-8.

Sonia Kruks. 2018. Retrieving Experience: Subjectivity and Recognition in Feminist Politics. Cornell University Press.

Simone de Beauvoir and Richard Wright embody what we could call, alluding to Paul Gilroy, 'Transatlantic Existentialism': they contributed to the circulation of ideas that constitute Black post-war thought. In this episode, Mickaëlle Provost explores the affinities between their analyses of oppression, and discusses the use of analogy in talking about patriarchy and anti-black racism.



The discussion is moderated by Tivadar Vervoort, and this podcast is hosted by Ashika Singh and Liesbeth Schoonheim



More reading....

Simone de Beauvoir. America Day by Day. Translated by Carol Cosman. Phoenix.

Paul Gilroy. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. Verso.

Mickaëlle Provost. 2021. “Undoing Whiteness: A Political Education of One’s Experience.” Journal of Philosophy of Education 55 (1): 229–42. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9752.12548.

Richard Wright. Native Son. 

In decolonial struggles for independence, there is a constant effort to combat unfreedom at multiple levels, including the internal transformations that deal with alienation. In this episode, Dana F. Miranda crossreads Fanon, Cabral and Beauvoir to show how Beauvoir's notion of ambiguity enriches the possession and repossession of freedom. 



The Q&A is moderated by Tivadar Vervoort.



Hosted by Ashika Singh and Liesbeth Schoonheim




An Eye for an Eye (Attached) by Simone de Beauvoir
“Violence Is Not an Evil”: Ambiguity and Violence in Simone de Beauvoir’s Early Philosophical Writings (Attached) by Ann V. Murphy
Beauvoir’s Ethics of Ambiguity: An Appreciation (Attached) by Helen Heise
The Spirit of Seriousness and Decolonisation (Attached) by Thomas Meagher
Ambiguity, Absurdity, and Reversibility: Responses to Indeterminacy (Attached) by Gail Weiss
Identity and Dignity in the National Liberation Struggle (Attached) by Amílcar Cabral
National Liberation and Culture (Attached) by Amílcar Cabral
The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon