Enemies and Reciprocities

Abstract

At a round table on Emily Grosholz' new collection, The Legacy of Simone de Beauvoir at the Maison Francaise in New York,' the issue of race stereotypes in her work was raised by audience members. The debate was animated and some speakers sprung to Beauvoir's defense: she wasn't the worst of her contemporaries, it was the times, she was a committed activist, a good amount of her work is indebted to race theory of her day, she promoted writers such as Frantz Fanon and Richard Wright, it would be a mistake to single her out, we shouldn't allow ourselves to be distracted from the best contributions