The Other Within Ethics, Politics, and the Body in Simone de Beauvoir

by Scarth, Fredrika

• ISBN13: 9780742534759
• ISBN10: 0742534758
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-11-09
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Summary

In The Other Within, Fredrika Scarth builds upon the recent studies that have surfaced as part of the Simone de Beauvoir renaissance to offer a reading of The Second Sex as an ethical text. Scarth provides us with a unique and enlightening study of Beauvoir's writing on the female body, and in particular on maternity as an important piece of Beauvoir's writing. Unlike other feminist scholars who find in Beauovir's writing a horror and repudiation of mother hood, Scarth argues that Beauvoir's writing on maternity can open up new possibilities of embodied subjectivity and agency, and can found a truly ethical relationship with the other.

Author Biography

Fredrika Scarth is instructor in the women's studies program at the University of Toronto.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Acknowledgments	xv
Rethinking the Body	1	(16)
Simone de Beauvoir: A Masculine Mother?	17	(34)
Coming of Age: Ambiguity and the Freedom of Others	51	(48)
The Second Sex: Ambiguity and the Body	99	(38)
Bodies at Risk: The Meanings of Maternity	137	(26)
Conclusion: Others Within---From Ethics to Politics	163	(12)
Bibliography	175	(14)
Index	189	(6)
About the Author	195