Le Deuxieme Sexe Research Articles

Simone de Beauvoir en Argentina: el rol de las editoriales y de las traducciones en la recepción de su obra

El presente artículo — enmarcado en la traductología, el feminismo filosófico y la teoría de género — trata sobre la amplia y rápida difusión de la influyente obra de Simone de Beauvoir en la cultura argentina de los años 50 y de los 70 con proyección a toda América Latina y España, gracias a la labor de numerosas editoriales radicadas en Buenos Aires, que emprendieron la tarea de traducción con intelectuales de renombre (CORBÍ SÁEZ, 2010, p.77). El análisis de las traducciones habilita a plantear cuestiones concomitantes a la recepción teórico-conceptual y a las fluctuaciones de sentido del léxico, por cuestiones epocales (FOUCAULT, 1992, p.128-129). Para el desarrollo de tales temáticas, este trabajo presenta, por un lado, una revisión de los casos significativos de terminología y sintaxis en Le deuxième sexe (1949), obra fundamental y vigente en el ámbito de los Estudios de Género. Al respecto, se seleccionaron casos con mecanismos discursivos que dan cuenta tanto de la presencia del sexo-género femenino como de su opacamiento, que fueron analizados desde un enfoque traductológico, contrastando la obra original en francés y la primera traducción de Pablo Palant (1954) de El segundo sexo. Por otro lado, se ofrece un recorrido de las otras obras de Beauvoir, sus traducciones y de quienes llevaron a cabo esa tarea, con un relevamiento exhaustivo en apéndice.

The Impact of the New Translation of The Second Sex: Rediscovering Beauvoir

...The new translation was published in 2009 in the United Kingdom and was made available one year later in the United States. By now, readers have had the time to reacquaint themselves with the work and have had the time to assess the new translation. The one important thing about it is that it is the first complete translation. Nothing has been left out of this one. This means that readers familiar with the previous translation have discovered entire and sometimes lengthy passages that they did not know about. If a new edition of the work in English had done just that, it would already be a good thing. But the translators have also aimed at fixing the problems of Parshley’s translation. In their “Translators’ Note,” Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier indicate that they have “translated Le deuxieme sexe as it was written, unabridged and unsimplified, maintaining Beauvoir’s philosophical language.” They also say that they “were keenly aware of the need to put the philosopher back into her text. To transpose her philosophical style and voice into English was the most crucial task we faced.” In order to do this, and lacking the philosophical training themselves, they secured the collaboration of a good number of Beauvoir scholars to look at their translation and offer advice, suggestions, and corrections. As they explain, they sometimes received contradictory advice and had to make decisions, entirely their own...

Uncovering the hidden actors with the help of Latour: the ‘making’ of The Second Sex

This paper seeks to respond to current and on-going criticism of the first and only English translation of Simone de Beauvoir’s Le deuxieme sexe. It reconsiders the translator-publisher dynamic by applying Bruno Latour’s sociological framework in order to arrive at more detailed and comprehensive conclusions. After briefly presenting the publication, reception, and the criticism of the English translation, this paper investigates into the case study with the help of Latour and the letters from the Smith College Archives. The study was based on the reading of historical documents – more than a hundred letters between the translator, Howard M. Parshley, and the publishing house, Alfred A. Knopf. A brief overview of Latour’s Actor-Network Theory (ANT) is presented and then followed by two examples of application of the theoretical framework. The paper concludes by insisting that the involvement of multiple actors and their influence on translation products should receive more attention when considering the work of translators.

Simone de Beauvoir by Ursula Tidd

88o Reviews While Paul Smith understandably makes out a quite proper case in his intro duction for considering this collection as a conceptually unified project, its interest might rather be found by readers to lie precisely in itsversatile diversity, and in the centrifugal impulse of the ideas and connections it throws up. For this reader, such an impulse came often from the cross-currents relating tometadiscursive strategies and in particular tomultiple rewritings. This latter is richly evident in the careful study of Perec's choice and reuse inLa Vie mode d'emploi of quotations from Rabelais, who may in turn be quoting Pliny or Lucian, just asMontaigne re writes Plutarch before being rewritten in turnby Celine. This highly self-conscious awareness of and play with earlier writing seems particularly to characterize the periods juxtaposed here, and the reminder of how exciting that kaleidoscope of reference can be isnot the least of the virtues of this stimulating volume. University of St Andrews David Gascoigne Simone de Beauvoir. By Ursula Tidd. (Critical Lives) London: Reaktion. 2009. 187 pp. ?10.95. ISBN 978-1-86189-434-2. This book is part of a series of critical lives' which sets out to explore the lives of 'leading cultural figures of themodern period' (p. 2) and relate them to their major works, and this is exactly what Ursula Tidd does. The series already numbers twenty-one volumes, but Simone de Beauvoir is the firstwoman to be included. The book is aimed at the educated reader who wants to gain an overview of Beauvoir's lifeand work, not the specialist. Notes are kept to aminimum, works are quoted inEnglish, and thebibliography ishighly selective. Tidd, however, does not simplify Beauvoir's thought and does not shun presentation of her philosophical ideas. The text is short (166 pages ofmain text) and is illustratedwith thirty-sixphotos, most of these being of Beauvoir at various ages. The task of presenting a major thinker and prolific writer in such a short space cannot have been easy, but Tidd has done itvery well. She has synthesized a lot of information and presented it in a clear narrative. Her text ismainly descriptive?she isnot defending a thesis?but she expertly weaves together Beauvoir's life and themajor historical events of the twentieth century and shows what impact these have had on her thinking and writing. Tidd has adopted a dual structure,mainly chronological but also thematic, di viding Beauvoir's life into seven periods that correspond to seven themes, such as 'The Birth of an Intellectual' or 'Becoming aWoman'. The topic of the Other is one that Tidd highlights in her presentation. In her chapter 'The Problem of the Other' she looks at the relationship between Beau voir and Jean-Paul Sartre and their famous pact, the tragedy of her friend Zaza's death, and the role played by Olga Kosakievicz both in Beauvoir's life and in her work, since Xaviere inVlnvitee is based on her. At that point in Beauvoir's life theOther was something to be eliminated, as Francoise does inVlnvitee. In MLR, 105.3, 20!0 881 the following chapter, 'The Discovery of History, Tidd shows how the Second World War prompted Beauvoir to become involved politically; how, rather than suppressing theOther, shewas going to discover theOthers of her contemporary society. Beauvoir, as everybody knows, was to denounce in Le Deuxieme Sexe the oppression of women in patriarchy, but also, which is less well known, she was to expose in La Vieillesse the ways elderly people are badly treated in a society geared towards productivity and youth. Tidd also narrates Beauvoir's involvement with her significant Others, mainly Sartre and Nelson Algren, but also Claude Lanzmann, and Sylvie Le Bon. She relies, of course, on Beauvoir's autobiographies, but also on more recently published letters and diaries, as well as critical studies. Tidd discusses all of Beauvoir's major works and even some of her lectures, such as those she gave in Japan, summarizing the argument or the plot and highlighting themain ideas. She signals too what kind of reception some of the essays and novels had. Beauvoir emerges as a formidable figure, perhaps more of a philoso pher...

Fiction Now: The French Novel in the Twenty-First Century by Warren Motte

MLR, 105.3, 20!0 881 the following chapter, 'The Discovery of History, Tidd shows how the Second World War prompted Beauvoir to become involved politically; how, rather than suppressing theOther, shewas going to discover theOthers of her contemporary society. Beauvoir, as everybody knows, was to denounce in Le Deuxieme Sexe the oppression of women in patriarchy, but also, which is less well known, she was to expose in La Vieillesse the ways elderly people are badly treated in a society geared towards productivity and youth. Tidd also narrates Beauvoir's involvement with her significant Others, mainly Sartre and Nelson Algren, but also Claude Lanzmann, and Sylvie Le Bon. She relies, of course, on Beauvoir's autobiographies, but also on more recently published letters and diaries, as well as critical studies. Tidd discusses all of Beauvoir's major works and even some of her lectures, such as those she gave in Japan, summarizing the argument or the plot and highlighting themain ideas. She signals too what kind of reception some of the essays and novels had. Beauvoir emerges as a formidable figure, perhaps more of a philoso pher than a fiction writer, since Tidd puts the accent on her ideas. Tidd obviously respects Beauvoir, and this is reflected in the tactful handling of some of themore controversial aspects of her life. This is an excellent introduction to Beauvoir's work, life,and myth. Swansea University Catherine Rodgers Fiction Now: The French Novel in theTwenty-First Century. ByWarren Motte. Champaign, IL, and London: Dalkey Archive Press. 2008. 237 pp. $29.95. ISBN 978-1-56478-503-9. Although byWarren Motte's own avowal this accessible volume isnot intended to provide a comprehensive survey of the extreme contemporain, it defies perennial pronouncements of the terminal crisis of the French novel. Concentrating on the Metropolitan French novel that is his area of expertise, and by taking a series of what he describes as 'soundings' (p. 10), Motte seeks to put the range and diversity of the French contemporary critical novel on display' (p. 33). While the descriptor critical' remains somewhat opaque, the opening chapter identifies a personal preference forwriters who situate themselves questioningly in relation to literary tradition and to the cultural and political challenges of the turn of the twenty-firstcentury. With their self-reflexivemetaliterary strategies and a concern for certain kinds ofmarginality (though questions of gender and sexuality tend to be elided), forMotte, 'they share a crucial will tomake French fiction new' (pp. 13-14). The fictions featured (together with a helpful list of authors who were also candidates for inclusion) are for themost part published by Minuit and P.O.L. Each chapter operates discretely as a comprehensive introduction to recentworks by eightwriters: JeanEchenoz, Christian Gailly, Gerard Gavarry, Patrick Lapeyre, Helene Lenoir, Christine Montalbetti, Marie Redonnet, and Lydie Salvayre. Ar ranged from best to least known, this ordering arguably risks the occlusion of the 882 Reviews less familiar writers bymore established figures (Echenoz, Gailly, Redonnet, and Salvayre). Single works of fiction are situated in the context of the author's oeuvre and, to a lesser extent, the field of cultural production, although the chapter on Salvayre surveys the author's output since 1990. Each chapter is a lively and artful mix of description and analysis, which gives the reader a clear sense of narratives at once in terms of form, content, and the relationship between the two, though unfortunately, and no doubt due to editorial pressures, quotations are given only inEnglish. Accessibly, if sometimes fleetingly,Motte draws on critical perspectives includ ing those ofMarc Auge, Michel de Certeau, Roland Barthes, Maurice Blanchot, Guy Debord, Jacques Derrida, Gerard Genette, and Emmanuel Levinas (plus be yond this francophone frame of reference, Gerald Prince, Edward Said, Tvzetan Todorov, and several contemporary critics of recent French fiction). There is, for example, productive reference to Derrida on hospitality as a way of discussing Marie Redonnet's Diego (Paris: Minuit, 2005), though amore predictable recourse toAuge undercuts the claims for originality ofGerard Gavarry's Hop-Id! Un deux trois (Paris: P.O.L., 2001). None the less,Motte's account of Gavarry's inventive metalinguistic perspectives on life in the banlieue otherwise lives up to his...

Ni Ennemie, Ni Rivale: Female Friendship in Works by Alice Rivaz, Anne-Lise Grobety and Noelle Revaz

This article studies the theme of female friendship in work by three women writers from French-speaking Switzerland: La Paix des ruches by Alice Rivaz (1947), Pour mourir en fevrier by Anne-Lise Grobety (1969) and Rapport aux betes (2002) by Noelle Revaz. The writers chosen for this study represent three generations, having been born in 1901, 1949 and 1968 respectively. The article compares and contrasts their different representations of friendships between women. Rivaz, writing before Le Deuxieme sexe and the modern women's movement, has a very idealistic view of relations between women, which she contrasts strongly with male-female interaction; Grobety, writing in the wake of 1968 and during the early days of modern feminism, is perhaps more realistic but again sees men as potential threats to relationships between women; finally, Revaz is completely different since her female character is isolated from other women, dominated by the male narrator and sidelined. This article thus seeks to show how, over a period of sixty years, the theme of female friendship has been dealt with in different ways by women writers, and establishes links with changing attitudes to the women's movement.

Narcissism, Abjection and the Reader(e) of Simone de Beauvoir's Les Belles Images

Narcissism, Abjection and the Reader(e) of Simone de Beauvoir's Les Belles Images

Book Reviews

BOOK REVIEWS O’Brien, W. & Embree, L. (Eds.). (2001). The existential phenomenology of Simone de Beauvoir . Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, ISBN 0-7925-7064-3, 263 pp., $56.00 (cloth). My knowledge of Simone de Beauvoir’s philosophical works was limited to Le Deuxieme Sexe and her relationship with Sartre until now with the publication of The Existential Phenomenology of Simone de Beauvoir. This collection of essays provides a scholarly and thoughtful education worthy of an academic seminar on Beauvoir’s philosophy. Her work is viewed in its own right rather than as a disciple of Sartre, and the original- ity of her

Rosamond Rescued: George Eliot's Critique of Sexism in "Middlemarch"

Previous articleNext article No AccessRosamond Rescued: George Eliot's Critique of Sexism in "Middlemarch"Anne E. PatrickAnne E. Patrick Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Religion Volume 67, Number 2Apr., 1987Women and Religion Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/487551 Views: 15Total views on this site Citations: 3Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1987 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:NICOLE M. COONRADT WRITING MARY GARTH: LOCATING MIDDLE GROUND AMONG FEMALE CHARACTERS IN GEORGE ELIOT'S "MIDDLEMARCH", George Eliot - George Henry Lewes Studies 62-63, no.11 (Sep 2012): 16–33.https://doi.org/10.2307/georelioghlstud.62-63-1.0016NICOLE M. COONRADT WRITING MARY GARTH: LOCATING MIDDLE GROUND AMONG FEMALE CHARACTERS IN GEORGE ELIOT'S "MIDDLEMARCH", George Eliot - George Henry Lewes Studies 62-63, no.11 (Sep 2012): 16–33.https://doi.org/10.2307/42827900Michael Cohen Reform, Rescue, and the Sisterhoods of Middlemarch, Victorian Literature and Culture 21 (Oct 2008): 89.https://doi.org/10.1017/S106015030000303X