Feminist Formations

Abstract:

In this published conversation, the authors discuss their teaching of Simone de Beau-voir’s The Second Sex more than seventy years after its 1949 publication, paying particular attention to the text’s potential significance for students in several different fields of study, including women, gender, and sexuality studies; American studies; African American studies; and performance studies. The authors share pedagogical strategies for encouraging students to read the text historically; which portions of the book they find especially useful to assign; and other texts and authors that pair fruitfully with Beauvoir. In addition to thinking about the text’s historical significance, the authors discuss what The Second Sex may offer in the wake of poststructuralism, particularly for contemporary conversations regarding ethics, freedom, and the mattering of life.