Simone de Beauvoir : the making of an intellectual woman

How did Simone de Beauvoir become Simone de Beauvoir, the leading feminist thinker and emblematic intellectual woman of the twentieth century? Toril Moi blends biography with literary criticism, feminist theory, and historical and social analysis, to provide a provocative and original account of Beauvoir's education and formation as an intellectual. In a second edition of her landmark study of Simone de Beauvoir, published 100 years after Beauvoir's birth, Toril Moi provides a major new introduction discussing the recent publication of papers and letters by Beauvoir, including her letters to her lovers Jacques-Laurent Bost and Nelson Agren, and her student diaries from 1926/7. Moving from the impact of educational institutions on Beauvoir to a representation of love, desire, and sexuality, Moi analyzes the conflicts and contradictions that shape intellectual women's lives, offering a new interpretation of Beauvoir's relationship to Sartre and to other women, and forging a new alliance between socio-historical and psychoanalytical perspectives. 1. Second Only To Sartre -- 2. The Making Of An Intellectual Woman -- 3. Politics And The Intellectual Woman: Cliche's And Commonplaces In The Reception Of Simone De Beauvoir -- 4. L'invitee: An Existentialist Melodrama -- 5. Freedom And Flirtation: The Personal And The Philosophical In Sartre And Beauvoir -- 6. Ambiguous Women: Alienation And The Body In The Second Sex -- 7. Beauvoir's Utopia: The Politics Of The Second Sex -- 8. Scandal Of Loneliness And Separation: The Writing Of Depression. Toril Moi. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Moving from the impact of educational institutions on Beauvoir to her representation of love, desire and sexuality, Moi analyzes the conflicts and contradictions that shape intellectual women's lives and offers an interpretation of Beauvoir's relationship to Sartre and to other women.