Simone de Beauvoir is best known for The Second Sex, but also published a four-part memoir that stands as a chronicle of post-war French intellectual culture. The Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities will host a talk with Laura Hengehold, professor in the Department of Philosophy, examining Beauvoir’s changing attitudes toward history as represented in the autobiographies, as well as in The Second Sex and her final major work, The Coming of Age.
Hengehold will consider ways that autobiography has been a significant factor in feminist cultural activity and evaluate Beauvoir’s own self-criticism of The Second Sex for being excessively concerned with women’s consciousness rather than with their material circumstances.
The talk, titled “Turning Points in Life and History: Perspectives from Autobiography,” will be held Thursday, April 14, from noon to 1 p.m., in Clark Hall, Room 206. An informal lunch will be provided.
Prior registration is requested.
This lecture also will be livestreamed at case.edu/livestream/s1.