Understanding Beauvoir, Understanding Modernism

Places the philosophical and literary texts of one of the key proponents of 20th-century intellectual thought in dialogue with the ethics, aesthetics, and politics of modernism.

A key existential and phenomenological thinker, and a public intellectual who witnessed much of the 20th century, Simone de Beauvoir was one of the most significant figures in modernist thought.

With Understanding Beauvoir, Understanding Modernism, a global array of contributors examine how Beauvoir's body of work transcends cultural temporalities and continues to inform our understanding of modernism. While not necessarily considered a modernist writer herself, her insistence on the centrality of "lived experience," which she explores in her literary, political, and philosophical work, highlights Beauvoir's appreciation of the themes and aesthetics often at the core of modernist writing.

As with other books in the Understanding Philosophy, Understanding Modernism series, this volume is divided into three parts. Part I brings new perspectives to the interpretations of some of Beauvoir’s key texts, underscoring the perenniality of her philosophy and its application to our modern times. Part II showcases how Beauvoir’s own cultural production reinvigorates contemporary understandings of modernist aesthetics, exploring parallels between the philosopher’s own work and other literary, cinematic, mythological, and intermedial modes of expression. Part III offers a glossary of Beauvoir’s key concepts. Rich in granular detail, these entries allow for sustained engagement with the multivalences that each term has inspired in and through the thinker.