This study documents the problematic translator-publisher relationship in the case of the English translation of Simone de Beauvoir’s Le deuxième sexe. The socio-historical investigation of the case study demonstrates that the 1953 translation was complicated by several factors: the translator’s lack of philosophical knowledge, the editor’s demands to cut and simplify the text, the publisher’s intention to emphasize the book’s scientific cachet, and Beauvoir’s lack of cooperation. The investigation focuses on two aspects: the translator’s subservience and the involvement of multiple actors. Primarily concerned with the interaction between the translator and other actors, this study seeks answers that require investigation into historical documents and the work of other scholars critical of The Second Sex. In this enquiry, more than one hundred letters between the translator, H. M. Parshley, and the publisher, Knopf, are thoroughly analyzed. The study combines Bruno Latour’s and Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological concepts in order to provide a more detailed and encompassing examination within the context of Translation Studies. The letter correspondence is the primary evidence on which the study’s conclusions are based. / Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada

This thesis contributes with a new reading of philosopher Simone de Beauvoir’s The ethics of ambiguity. Earlier research has shown close ties to Marxism and relational theories on autonomy. The purpose of the thesis is to examine whether the ethics also contains a normative liberal individualism, and furthermore to relate this to the criticism that has been directed towards liberal individualism in academia and today’s society. In this way the thesis contributes partly by closing the research gap regarding the relationship between Beauvoir and liberalism, and partly also by developing theories on liberal individualism. The analysis finds that the autonomy of Beauvoir resembles that of liberalism. Furthermore, it is shown that Beauvoir’s argument for human agency should lead to an ideal of individual negative liberty. Beauvoir also holds an ideal of self-development that in some ways corresponds to liberal self-development but that is mainly influenced by Marxism. It seems that the way Beauvoir could justify negative liberty could be a way to bridge the gap between liberalism and its critics, by arguing for negative liberty through a relational perspective.

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The purpose of this thesis is to, based on interviews and document studies, critically discuss how the introduction of kickboxing in Physical Education (PE) could affect gender equality in society. Based on a queer feminist and norm critical perspective on the prevailing teaching of PE, which, despite official efforts to challenge and modernize PE, persists in reproducing gender norms by e.g. spending 75% of class time on ball games. The hypothesis is that girls accessing violence (empowerment) through a bodily awareness in the form of kickboxing, positively would challenge the power imbalance that gender norms create. Girls are brought up, even today, in accordance with gender norms arguing against girls/women wanting to use their bodies as powerful tools to set limits. In accordance with the traditional Ling gymnastics, in which body and mind develops into a harmonious whole, the introduction of kickboxing in PE would have a major impact on how girls and boys could relate to each other in the community as well as develop the mind and body in harmony. It can be hypothesized that by including kickboxing in PE girls' bodies would be given the opportunity to be powerful, thus enable girls as well as boys to identify themselves as transcendent individuals rather than to experience the powerlessness and mental illness which often develops already during puberty. / Uppsatsens syfte är att med utgångspunkt i samtalsintervjuer och dokumentstudier kritiskt diskutera hur införandet av kickboxning i skolämnet Idrott och hälsa skulle kunna påverka jämställdheten i samhället. Diskussionen förs utifrån ett queerfeministiskt och normkritiskt perspektiv på rådande undervisning i Idrott och hälsa, som trots Skolverkets delvis normutmanande styrdokument framhärdar i att reproducera genusnormer genom att ägna 75% av lektionstiden till bollspel. Hypotesen är att flickors tillång till våld (empowerment) genom ett kroppsligt görande i form av kickboxning, på ett positivt sätt skulle förändra den maktobalans som genusnormer skapar. Flickor uppfostras ännu idag i enlighet med normer som hävdar att flickor/kvinnor inte vill, kan eller bör ha möjlighet att använda sin kropp som ett kraftfullt redskap för att sätta gränser. I enlighet med den traditionella Linggymnastikens grunder, bör kropp och själ utvecklas till en harmonisk enhet. Införandet av kickboxning i Idrott och hälsaundervisningen skulle vara en normkritisk pedagogik med stor inverkan på hur flickor och pojkar skulle förhålla sig till varandra i samhället och utveckla kropp och själ i harmoni. Genom att även flickors kroppar ges möjlighet att vara kraftfulla kan det hypotetiseras att flickor skulle kunna se sig själva som transcenderande subjekt istället för att uppleva den maktlöshet och psykiska ohälsa som ofta befästs under puberteten.

In dem Aufsatz werden Geschlecht und Geschlechtsidentität in dem Roman Die Wand von Marlen Haushofer untersucht. Anhand der Theorien und Begriffen Simone de Beauvoirs und Judith Butlers wird die Veränderung bei der Ich-Erzählerin des Werkes analysiert, die sich von typischer Frau in geschlechtloses Ich verwandelt.

La littérature entretient un rapport à la mode, non seulement dans ses formes qui sont en dialogue avec l’époque, mais aussi dans ses sujets où la mode devient partie prenante du récit. L’avènement du prêt-à-porter en tant qu’« événement majeur » de l’après-guerre (Grau, 2007) remet en conflit les termes d’élégance et d’émancipation. La représentation de la femme du XXe siècle change ainsi au gré des tendances. Alors que le vêtement informe de moins en moins sur les repères sociaux culturels (il se neutralise et s’universalise), l’idéal féminin est fortement requestionné entre autres par les femmes de lettres françaises, témoins privilégiés de cette époque. Simone de Beauvoir et Violette Leduc rédigent deux ouvrages imprégnés de ce profond questionnement du soi féminin intellectuel et de la performance du genre. Mémoires d’une jeune fille rangée (Simone de Beauvoir, 1958) et La Bâtarde (Violette Leduc, 1964) en tant que romans d’apprentissage écrits par des femmes dans la France de l’après-guerre mettent de l’avant ce rapport à la mode comme construction du genre ; construction qui entre cependant en conflit avec la représentation de la femme intellectuelle de l’époque. La perception du genre chez Beauvoir et Leduc se manifeste alors et surtout à travers une tension relevée entre mode (exhibition de la féminité) et intellectualisme (exhibition de la neutralité) ; tension perceptible à travers les alternances du dit et du non-dit. Est-il possible de performer un genre féminin intellectuel ? Et de quelle manière cette performance se manifeste-t-elle ? Pour répondre à cette problématique, les études menées sur le Bildungsroman féminin (Labovitz, 1986 ; Šnircová, 2015) nous permettront d’observer le phénomène de l’apprentissage d’un idéal de la féminité. L’on relèvera par la suite à l’aide d’études entreprises sur la mode et son influence (Baudot, 1999 ; Craik, 1994 ; Evans, 1999) de même qu’à travers les concepts de performance et de performativité (Féral, 2013 ; Kollnitz et Pecorari, 2021), les diverses tentatives de réappropriation par les deux intellectuelles à l’étude de cet idéal féminin véhiculé. Enfin, il s’agira de révéler, au regard des études sur les identités sexuelles (Butler, 1999 ; Lipovetsky, 2006), la présence d’un rapport inédit et complexe entre la femme intellectuelle du XXe siècle et le genre. / Literature maintains a relationship with fashion not only through its forms, which are in conversation with the era, but also through its subjects as fashion becomes a necessary part of the narrative. The advent of ready-to-wear clothing as a “major event” of the post-war period (Grau, 2007) brings the terms “elegance” and “emancipation” into conflict. The representation of the 20th century woman thus changes according to trends. While the garment is losing its impact on cultural social landmarks⁠ by becoming neutral and universal⁠, French women of letters—the privileged witnesses of this era—are strongly questioning the conveyed feminine ideal. Two of them, Simone de Beauvoir and Violette Leduc, wrote important novels challenging the notions of the female intellectual self and gender performance: Mémoires d’une jeune fille rangée (Simone de Beauvoir, 1958) and La Bâtarde (Violette Leduc, 1964). These two Bildungsroman written in post-war France make the case for fashion as an active component in gender construction; a construction that, however, conflicts with the representation of the female intellectual at the time. Indeed, Beauvoir and Leduc’s perception of gender manifests through a tension between fashion (the exhibition of femininity) and intellectualism (the exhibition of neutrality); a tension noticeable through the alternations of the verbal and the non-verbal. Therefore, is it possible to perform a feminine intellectual gender? If so, how does this performance manifest? To answer these questions, we will first look into studies on the female Bildungsroman (Labovitz, 1986; Šnircová, 2015); this will help us understand how an ideal of femininity is not simply an inherent phenomenon but one that is learnt. Then, we will focus on fashion studies (Baudot, 1999; Craik, 1994; Evans, 1999) and the concepts of performance and performativity (Féral, 2013 ; Kollnitz et Pecorari, 2021); this will allow us to show the various attempts at reappropriation of the feminine ideal conveyed to the two intellectuals considered in this thesis. Finally, we will turn to gender studies (Butler, 1999; Lipovetsky, 2006) to reveal the presence of an unprecedented and complex relation between the intellectual woman of the 20th century and gender.

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Ce texte récapitule mon parcours de recherche dans l'histoire des femmes et du genre

In Günter Grass's Danzig Trilogy and novella, Im Krebsgang, an antagonistic female type makes a repeated appearance. She appears in the guise of Susi Kater and Luzie Rennwand in Die Blechtrommel, and as Tulla Pokriefke in the other works, Katz und Maus, Hundejahre, and Im Krebsgang. This antagonistic female type is not like other women in these works. A review of Le Deuxième Sexe by feminist Simone de Beauvoir reveals several crucial components contributing to woman's position in society. Most essentially, a woman's natural attributes and (dis)abilities and the conventions of society have enforced her historical submission to man. This thesis analyzes how the antagonistic female type, or villain, compares and contrasts with other female figures in these works by Grass, according to a paradigm derived from Beauvoir's description of woman. From this analysis, a better understanding of the female villain's nature emerges. Indeed, such a comparison demonstrates that certain female figures in the works of Grass transcend their historically oppressed or subdued status by refusing to submit to those natural handicaps and societal restrictions identified by Beauvoir, and thus become a threat to man's status or security as an antagonistic female type, or villain. However, the villain figure is not always inherently evil, but possesses the capacity to change. The villain and victim can reconcile their differences and may even form a friendly relationship. This evolving villain-victim duality becomes most clear in Grass's work, Im Krebsgang, and suggests the possibility of assuaging contemporary conflicts as educators sympathize with the experiences of both extremist groups and victimized parties and help them come to terms with their differences.