Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Toward a Phenomenology of Sexual Difference: Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Beauvoir

Simone de Beauvoir's Le Deuxi_me Sexe has been studied extensively since its appearance in 1949. Through the years, certain passages have taken on prestige; others are seen as unimportant to understanding Beauvoir's argument. In Toward a Phenomenology of Sexual Difference, Sara HeinSmaa rediscovers those neglected passages in her quest to follow Beauvoir's line of thinking. HeinSmaa, like some other recent philosophers, finds that Le Duexi_me Sexe is a philosophical inquiry, not the empirical study it is commonly thought to be. Others who view Beauvoir's masterpiece as a work of philosophy argue it is a criticism not only of Sartrean phenomenology, but of phenomenology as a whole. HeinSmaa thinks differently. She finds that Beauvoir's starting point is the Husserlian idea of the living body that she found developed in Merleau-Ponty's PhZnomZnologie de la perception. So when Beavoir wrote Le Duexi_me Sexe, she was writing not as Sartre's pupil, but as a scholar in the tradition of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty. Review In her exciting new book, Sara Heinämaa takes Beauvoir scholarship to a new level, a new depth, providing the definitive analysis of Beauvoir's appropriation of Husserlean phenomenology. Heinämaa gives the best analysis I've ever read of Beauvoir's account of women's oppression, solving interpretive riddles that have bothered me for years. It is a great book, one destined to become a classic.--Margaret Simons, author of Beauvoir and the Second Sex Heinämaa restores to Simone de Beauvoir her place within and beyond philosophy in this elegant and original rereading of her work. Here, Beauvoir comes into her own as a genuine thinker of life in its experienced complexity--a philosopher in the best sense of the word.--Elizabeth Grosz, author of Space, Time and Perversion: Essays on the Politics of Bodies With great scholarly aplomb, Sara Heinämaa convincingly shows the phenomenological significance of Simone de Beauvoir's work. This is an excellent first book from an emerging philosophical talent.--Simon Critchley, Hans Jonas Professor, The New School for Social Research Heinamaa's work is essential reading for its interpreters. Recommended.--CHOICE About the Author Sara HeinSmaa is senior research fellow in the Department of Philosophy, University of Helsinki, Finland.