Simone de Beauvoir: The Making of an Intellectual Woman

by Toril Moi

In Simone de Beauvoir: The Making of an Intellectual Woman , Toril Moi shows how Simone de Beauvoir became the leading feminist thinker and emblematic intellectual woman of the twentieth century. Blending biography with literary criticism, feminist theory, and historical and social analysis, this book provides a completely original analysis of Beauvoir's education and formation as an intellectual.

In The Second Sex, Beauvoir shows that we constantly make something of what the world tries to make of us. By reconstructing the social and political world in which Beauvoir became the author of The Second Sex , and by showing how Beauvoir reacted to the pressures of that world, Moi applies Beauvoir's ideas to Beauvoir's own life.

Ranging from an investigation of French educational institutions to reflections on the relationship between freedom and flirtation, this book uncovers the conflicts and difficulties of an intellectual woman in the middle of the twentieth century. Through her analysis of Beauvoir's life and work Moi shows how difficult it was - and still is - for women to be taken seriously as intellectuals. Two major chapters on The Second Sex provide a theoretical and a political analysis of that epochal text. The last chapter turns to Beauvoir's love life, her depressions and her fear of ageing.

In a major new introduction, Moi discusses Beauvoir's letters to her lovers Jacques-Laurent Bost and Nelson Algren, as well as her recently published student diaries from 1926/27.

Genres: Feminism, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Biography, History, Womens, Gender

349 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Toril Moi is James B. Duke Professor of Literature and Romance Studies and Professor of English, Philosophy and Theatre Studies at Duke University. Moi is also the Director of the Center for Philosophy, Arts, and Literature at Duke. She attended University of Bergen. Previously she held positions as a lecturer in French at the University of Oxford and as Director of the Center for Feminist Research at the University of Bergen, Norway. She lived in Oxford, United Kingdom from 1979 to 1989. Currently she lives in North Carolina. She works on feminist theory and women's writing; on the intersections of literature, philosophy and aesthetics; on "finding ways of reading literature with philosophy and philosophy with literature without reducing the one to the other."

In 2002 she was awarded an honorary degree, doctor philos. honoris causa, at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.[1] In 1998 she won Duke's University Teacher of the Year Award and in 2008 she won the Dean's Award for Excellence in Mentoring of Graduate Students.

She is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.

Reviews

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

wow. i had no idea about the relationship between Sartre and de Beauvoir. in a way, i wish i didn't know how obsessed with him she was. this brilliant, seemingly independent woman, was so smitten with Sartre that she lost her "self," her soul, her ability to find joy for herself. very tragic.

[Kirsty · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really admire what Moi has done here, producing a great critical biography. My favourite paragraphs were those on The Second Sex, but there is much of merit to be found throughout.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyed reading this, like a gym session for the brain. I especially enjoyed reading out sections critiquing The Second Sex to my bemused partner.

[Rebecca Garrard · Rating 4 out of 5]

"To say that [existence] is ambiguous is to assert that its meaning is never fixed, that it must be constantly won,"