Simone De Beauvoir: A Toolkit for the 21st Century
Philosophy Podcasts
The French activist, novelist and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) is more popular than ever. In this podcast, we ask how her political commitments have shaped her writing as well as her public interventions: existentialism, Marxism, anti-colonialism and, finally feminism. This podcast, starting from Beauvoir’s social and political engagement, asks to what extent De Beauvoir provides important tools for diagnosing the present and offering a prognosis for the future. Her life and work provide a toolkit offering both a conceptual apparatus as practical examples of acts of resistance.
Location:
United States
Genres:
Philosophy Podcasts
Description:
The French activist, novelist and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) is more popular than ever. In this podcast, we ask how her political commitments have shaped her writing as well as her public interventions: existentialism, Marxism, anti-colonialism and, finally feminism. This podcast, starting from Beauvoir’s social and political engagement, asks to what extent De Beauvoir provides important tools for diagnosing the present and offering a prognosis for the future. Her life and work provide a toolkit offering both a conceptual apparatus as practical examples of acts of resistance.
Language:
English
Episodes
Qrescent Mali Mason: Uses of Ambiguity. A Black Feminist Phenomenologist Reflects on Ambiguities in the Year 2020
3/24/2022
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...
Duration:01:19:57
Ana Maskalan: "I Didn't Ask for It". Women of Former Yugoslavia Vs. The Invisibility of Rape
3/21/2022
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...
Duration:00:43:50
Catherine Raissiguier: Beauvoir, Bardot, and Burqinis. Making Sense of Modern France
3/17/2022
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
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Duration:00:46:32
Sonia Kruks: Old Age and Intersectionality — Beauvoir and Beyond
3/7/2022
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...
Duration:00:45:46
Mickaëlle Provost: A Transatlantic Existentialism — Simone de Beauvoir, Richard Wright and the Phenomenology of Racial Oppression
3/3/2022
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...
Duration:00:42:38
Dana F. Miranda: Repossession — The Ambiguity of Decolonization
2/28/2022
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
The Wretched of the Earth
Duration:00:47:00
Adam Kjellgren: Beauvoir the Mythmaker
2/24/2022
Simone de Beauvoir is often portrayed as a sworn enemy of myth because of her critical discussion of the myth of feminity in The Second Sex. Yet, in this episode, Adam Kjellgren argues that Beauvoir does not repudiate myth, but makes use of it herself.
This lecture is moderated by Deva Waal.
This podcast serie is hosted by Ashika Singh and Liesbeth Schoonheim
Duration:00:38:05
Filipa Melo Lopes: What do incels want? Explaining Incel Violence Using Beauvoirian Otherness
2/21/2022
In recent years, incel violence has moved from obscure corners of the internet onto mainstream news. In this episode, Filipa Melo Lopes discusses why most feminist explanations fail to grasp the specificity of this violence because these explanations focus on either the objectification of women or the perpetrator's sense of entitlement to sex. Instead, what incels want is a Beauvoirian “Other”. For Simone de Beauvoir, when men conceive of women as Other, they represent them as both human...
Duration:00:44:13
Dianna Taylor: Counter-violence — A Beauvoirian Response to Sexual Violence?
2/17/2022
In this episode, Dianna Taylor argues in favour of feminist counter-violence as responses to the sexual violence that both underpins and is reproduced by gender oppression. Beauvoir provides a concept of counter-violence in her discussion of resistance against fascist and colonial violence — and even if Beauvoir does not do so herself, we can extend this concept to her analysis of feminist liberation.
This lecture is moderated by Guilel Treiber.
Hosted by Ashika Singh and Liesbeth...
Duration:00:47:11
Heli Mahkonen: Love: Patriarchal oppression or emancipatory potential? Aspects of feminist love critique
2/14/2022
In this second episode, Heli Mahkonen elaborates on a key aspect of Beauvoir's Second Sex, namely her critique of romantic love. How does that classic, feminist critique relate to Black feminist thought on romantic love?
Hosted by Ashika Singh and Liesbeth Schoonheim
More reading.....
Duration:00:37:28
Jennifer McWeeny (with Tessel Veneboer): How Does Your Mind Grasp Your Body?
9/30/2021
In this first episode, Jennifer McWeeny elaborates on an important yet frequently mistranslated distinction found in Le Deuxième Sexe between saisir, se faire objetand se faire femme. Attending to the technical language of phenomenology that Beauvoir employs in these distinctions yields a new, 21st Century reading of Beauvoir’s philosophy of woman with social and political implications.
Hosted by Ashika Singh and Liesbeth Schoonheim
More reading…
The Second SexSimone de Beauvoir:...
Duration:01:14:38