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Reconnecting with Simone de Beauvoir's Radical Thought
Critical, Interdisciplinary, and International Conversations
*
30th International Conference of the Simone de Beauvoir Society
June 16-19, 2025 - Online
Time zone will be announced at a later date, depending on the participants
Organizer: Marine Rouch
DEADLINE EXTENDED TO FEBRUARY 7
| cfp-30th_international_conf_beauvoir_society.pdf |
Let us start with the observation that we are witnessing a severe and growing crisis characterized by the rightward shift of societies, widespread precarity, increasing inequalities, the exacerbation of racist, masculinist, and transphobic hatreds, and ecological collapse—a crisis perpetuated and worsened by a dehumanizing hegemonic neoliberal system. In this critical context, the 30th International Conference of the Simone de Beauvoir Society, which will take place online from June 16 to 19, 2025, has two objectives.
Submissions are expected to address the questions and struggles shaping our world today, such as neocolonialism, wars, police violence, the rightward shift of societies and governments, contemporary feminist issues, and the expression and resistance of minority subjectivities, etc. These submissions should demonstrate how Beauvoir’s thought, in conversation with other critical thinkers[4], both past and present, can be mobilized, appropriated, transformed, and extended to reimagine the contemporary world.
This is an interdisciplinary and international conference; therefore, proposals from all disciplines, theoretical approaches, and geographic areas are welcome. Significant emphasis will also be placed on creative critique and first-person reflective approaches. Early-career researchers, with or without institutional affiliation, are strongly encouraged to submit a proposal.
A publication of the conference proceedings is planned. Further details will be communicated at a later date.
Submission guidelines
To submit a proposal for a paper, please send to Dr. Marine Rouch at [email protected] by January 30, 2025 [deadline extended to February 7]:
Decisions will be announced no later than February 28, 2025.
In support of the Society’s activities, presenters will be asked to pay a membership fee to the Society before the conference. Info and details online.
Scientific Committee - Submissions will be blind-reviewed by:
[1] Michel Kail, « De la créativité du devenir… : La radicalité de Simone de Beauvoir », Cahiers Sens public, 2020/2, n° 28, 2020. p. 61-80.
[2] Razmig Keucheyan, The Left Hemisphere: Mapping Critical Theory Today, London/New York, Verso Books, 2014.
[3] Éléonore Lépinard, Feminist Trouble. Intersectional Politics in Postsecular Times, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2020 ; “Théoriser en féministe/théoriser le féminisme : pour une éthique de la responsabilité féministe », dans Anaïs Choulet-Vallet, Pauline Clochec, Delphine Frasch, Margot Giacinti, Léa Védie (dir.), Théoriser en féministe, Paris, Hermann, p. 17-34.
[4] Such as Sarah Ahmed, Judith Butler, Angela Davis, Frantz Fanon, Michel Foucault, bell hooks, Ursula K. Le Guin, María Lugones, Jean-Paul Sartre, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Monique Wittig, and many others.
- It is urgent to reflect on the possibility and conditions for reviving Beauvoir's radical thought. Just as the meaning of the term "radical", which as philosopher Michel Kail reminds us was once synonymous with revolution[1], has been eroded in the context mentioned above, Beauvoir's thought and figure have gradually been stripped of their political and committed substance, which was deeply rooted in a revolutionary project for profound societal transformation. Too often, because Beauvoir is associated with a white-bourgeois-heterosexual individualism, she is dismissed by contemporary critical thought—especially in France—as incapable of addressing the challenges of liberation and emancipation in the present time. Reflecting on the radical nature of Beauvoir's thought requires returning to the roots of her ideas—the historical contexts of their production, dissemination, and reception.
- There is also an urgent need to engage Beauvoir’s thought in conversation with contemporary counter-hegemonic critical perspectives, whether feminist/queer/trans, disability studies/crip, postcolonial or decolonial, Afrofeminist, ecofeminist/ecological, and others, which challenge the existing order[2]. Significant frictions undeniably arise from this dialogue, stemming from both temporal dissonances and anachronistic convergences—highlighting the importance of the first objective—as well as from biases, ambiguities, and gaps in Beauvoir's thought. By working from and with these frictions—central to the process of feminist theorization, as Éléonore Lépinard reminds us[3], and more broadly to any emancipatory thought—the goal is to reconnect with the intersubjective dimension of Beauvoir's philosophy and strive toward convergence in the emancipatory project of radical societal transformation shared by all these epistemologies.
Submissions are expected to address the questions and struggles shaping our world today, such as neocolonialism, wars, police violence, the rightward shift of societies and governments, contemporary feminist issues, and the expression and resistance of minority subjectivities, etc. These submissions should demonstrate how Beauvoir’s thought, in conversation with other critical thinkers[4], both past and present, can be mobilized, appropriated, transformed, and extended to reimagine the contemporary world.
This is an interdisciplinary and international conference; therefore, proposals from all disciplines, theoretical approaches, and geographic areas are welcome. Significant emphasis will also be placed on creative critique and first-person reflective approaches. Early-career researchers, with or without institutional affiliation, are strongly encouraged to submit a proposal.
A publication of the conference proceedings is planned. Further details will be communicated at a later date.
Submission guidelines
To submit a proposal for a paper, please send to Dr. Marine Rouch at [email protected] by January 30, 2025 [deadline extended to February 7]:
- an abstract of no more than 350 words in French or in English
- a document including a short bio-bibliography, your affiliation (if any), and your contact details
Decisions will be announced no later than February 28, 2025.
In support of the Society’s activities, presenters will be asked to pay a membership fee to the Society before the conference. Info and details online.
Scientific Committee - Submissions will be blind-reviewed by:
- Meryl Altman, DePauw University
- Katja Čičigoj, Klagenfurt/Celovec University
- Marine Rouch, University de Toulouse Jean Jaurès
- Karen Zoppa, University of Winnipeg
- Tove Pettersen, University of Oslo
- Jasmine Mohammed, Fiji National University
[1] Michel Kail, « De la créativité du devenir… : La radicalité de Simone de Beauvoir », Cahiers Sens public, 2020/2, n° 28, 2020. p. 61-80.
[2] Razmig Keucheyan, The Left Hemisphere: Mapping Critical Theory Today, London/New York, Verso Books, 2014.
[3] Éléonore Lépinard, Feminist Trouble. Intersectional Politics in Postsecular Times, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2020 ; “Théoriser en féministe/théoriser le féminisme : pour une éthique de la responsabilité féministe », dans Anaïs Choulet-Vallet, Pauline Clochec, Delphine Frasch, Margot Giacinti, Léa Védie (dir.), Théoriser en féministe, Paris, Hermann, p. 17-34.
[4] Such as Sarah Ahmed, Judith Butler, Angela Davis, Frantz Fanon, Michel Foucault, bell hooks, Ursula K. Le Guin, María Lugones, Jean-Paul Sartre, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Monique Wittig, and many others.
Call for participations in the Virtual Book Fair
| cfpbookfair.pdf |
As part of the 30th international conference of the Simone de Beauvoir Society, to be held online from June 16 to 19, 2025, we are organizing a virtual book fair.
If, over the past five years, you have published a book that closely or remotely mobilizes Beauvoir’s thought that you feel echoes the conference theme (Reconnecting with Simone de Beauvoir’s Radical Thought. Critical, Interdisciplinary and International Conversations – see CFP), please feel free to send us a proposal by following the instructions below.
Looking forward to hearing from you!
Submission guidelines
Please send to Dr. Marine Rouch ([email protected]) before January 30, 2025 [deadline extended to February 7]:
Decisions will be announced no later than February 28, 2025.
If, over the past five years, you have published a book that closely or remotely mobilizes Beauvoir’s thought that you feel echoes the conference theme (Reconnecting with Simone de Beauvoir’s Radical Thought. Critical, Interdisciplinary and International Conversations – see CFP), please feel free to send us a proposal by following the instructions below.
Looking forward to hearing from you!
Submission guidelines
Please send to Dr. Marine Rouch ([email protected]) before January 30, 2025 [deadline extended to February 7]:
- A summary of the book explaining how Beauvoir’s thought is mobilized or/and how the work echoes the theme of the conference (500 words max)
- A short bio-bibliography including your institutional affiliations (if any)
Decisions will be announced no later than February 28, 2025.
Copyright 2025. The International Simone de Beauvoir Society.