Politics with Beauvoir

"Politics with Beauvoir is a fascinating exploration of Beauvoir as a political thinker concerned with the conditions of collective freedom. By placing Beauvoir in conversation with thinkers and artists from Frantz Fanon and Richard Wright to Hannah Arendt and Lars von Trier, Lori Jo Marso shows why Beauvoir remains a fresh and invigorating feminist philosopher, more relevant than ever." - Toril Moi, author of Simone de Beauvoir: The Making of an Intellectual Woman

"Politics with Beauvoir is a remarkable and exciting book. It is a scholarly study that also brings Simone de Beauvoir's political thought to life, staging ‘encounters’ between Beauvoir and a whole host of others: people she knew personally; people she wrote about; people she might have known but didn't; people she couldn't have known; fictional characters—and of course Lori Jo Marso herself, whose brilliant interpretations and orchestrations give us an unparalleled understanding of Beauvoir on freedom, unfreedom, embodiment, collective action, and emancipatory politics. Smart, sharp, innovative, wonderfully unclassifiable, and vividly relevant, this is one of the best new works of political theory I've read in years." - Patchen Markell, author of Bound by Recognition

"An informed and interesting application of [Beauvoir's] politics. Recommended." - J. A. Gauthier, Choice

"A compelling re-examination of Beauvoir’s political thinking." - Maša Mrovlje, Contemporary Political Theory

"[Marso's] work on de Beauvoir demonstrates convincingly the inaccuracy of reading feminist theory as a species of thinking separated from politics." - Kathleen B. Jones, Los Angeles Review of Books

“Marso produces a different Beauvoir from the one most of us are familiar with, but a Beauvoir who is highly readable and relevant to contemporary theoretical debates. . . . She is to be commended for making Beauvoir germane to students of politics, cultural, and film studies in addition to her usual gender, philosophy, and literary readers.” - Elaine Stavro, Hypatia

"A gripping and novel reading of Simone de Beauvoir’s politics of freedom and Beauvoirian feminism. . . . A welcome contribution to Beauvoir scholarship and feminist political theory." - Megan Burke, H-France, H-Net Reviews

"Marso brilliantly demonstrates the way in which encounter is at the very center of everything Beauvoir wrote . . . . An important new contribution that extends studies on Beauvoir." - Mary Walsh, Review of Politics

"This book has a wide appeal. . . . Informative and accessible." - Angela Shepherd, Feminist Theory

"Marso accomplishes multiple remarkable feats. She liberates Simone de Beauvoir from the constraints of expectations constellated around either her relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre or a feminism too white and tired. . . . She presents a bold and original account of freedom. Were I to criticize this account, I would say that Marso is too modest: she attributes the idea of freedom in the encounter to Beauvoir, even as she acknowledges that it is she, Marso, who introduces the term 'encounter' into her conversation with Beauvoir. . . . I will not make this criticism, though, because it would obscure Marso’s basic insight: freedom, whether of thinking, creating, feeling, or acting, is never individual, never isolated. It is always and only freedom through an encounter with others. This is the core idea Marso models and develops in this remarkable book." - Jodi Dean, Politics & Gender

“Politics with Beauvoir is an essential text for any scholar who is interested in expanding their engagement with Beauvoir’s work. Just as the Beauvoirian encounters Marso stages in this text illuminate the fecundity of real engagement with alterity and difference, so, too, does the text itself show the possibilities for encounters in a world where Beauvoir truly becomes ours.” - Qrescent Mali Mason, Simone de Beauvoir Studies