The course will cover de Beauvoir’s philosophical Existentialism and her many novels. We will compare and contrast her form of Existentialism to Jean-Paul Sartre, her longtime friend, lover and nemesis. Existentialism is concerned with the drama of human existence: The quest for an ‘authentic’ life; existential ‘angst’; human freedom; and the absurdity of existence. Some philosophical texts covered will be: de Beauvoir’s The Ethics of Ambiguity; The Second Sex and Sartre’s Existentialism is a Humanism. Many of the existentialists wrote novels in which they played out existential issues through the situation of story and character. We will look at Beauvoir’s She Came to Stay and The Mandarins, for which she won the prestigious French Le Prix Concourt, and compare it to Jean-Paul Sartre’s Nausea.

DELIVERY MODE

• Online

COURSE OUTLINE

• Introduction and Biography: There is a deep connection between the personal life and philosophy for both de Beauvoir and Sartre as existentialists. We will follow their relationship from their university days, and in so doing introduce some of the central issues of existential philosophy.
• Joy and Generosity: Sartre may have said that ‘hell is other people’ but Beauvoir also explores the way we construct our identity through the recognition of ourselves in others.
• Simone de Beauvoir - Theories of Self and Intersubjectivity: De Beauvoir develops existentialism to include the category of ‘Being with Others’, which is an exploration of our connection to the subjecthood of other humans. The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947) is our primary text.
• The Second Sex (1949): Considered to be the foundational text of second wave feminism, we will reconsider the text using the unabridged 2010 translation (translated by C.Borde, S. Malovany-Chevallier) which has been hailed as returning her feminism to its broader existential and phenomenological implications.
• The Novels: The metaphysical novel: She Came to Stay (1943) deals with the dynamics of desire; our relationship to time; and the temporal structure of our relationship to ourselves and others. It also introduces the issue of violence and its legitimacy in the quest for freedom. The Mandarins (1954) is concerned with playing out the ambiguous nature of human existence: our drive for self-realization and our dependence on others.
• Jean-Paul Sartre’s Nausea: The novel Nausea is Sartre’s existentialism in action. He is both writing about a character faced with the challenge of meaningless existence, and showing in his work how that meaninglessness can be dealt with. Simone de Beauvoir’s wonderful essay as a tribute to her life with Jean-Paul : Adieux: A Farwell to Sarte: Finitude, Passion and the Body (1981).

LEARNING OUTCOMES

By the end of this course, students should be able to:

1. Identify the main theories of Simone de Beauvoir and Sartre and understand them in relation to our contemporary situation.
2. Show the important role played by Simone de Beauvoir and Sartre in our understanding of human nature.
3. Discuss the issues involved in questions concerning the role of freedom, choice and authenticity in the personal life and the social/political space.
4. Read the novels of both authors and connect them to the philosophy of Existentialism.