BEAUVOIRIAN DISTURBANCES: REVIEW OF A FRENCH WORKSHOP​​

At the dawn of her 110th birthday, a workshop on Simone de Beauvoir took place at the University of Toulouse Jean Jaurès, on November 20th, co-organized by Sylvie Chaperon, Marine Rouch and Justine Zeller.
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The title « Perturbation, ma sœur. Actualité de la pensée beauvoirienne » was chosen in tribute to the well-known book by the French feminist Cathy Bernheim, Perturbation ma sœur. Naissance d’un mouvement de femmes (Seuil, 1983) and, by extension, to the MLF (Mouvement de Libération des femmes) which Beauvoir supported. Also, « perturbation » ("disturbance" in English) was the theme that our laboratory chose to explore this year: it was a word that, we thought, suited Beauvoir, her life and her ideas extraordinarily well.
« Perturbation » is thus what we explored through Beauvoir’s gender disturbance and fluctuating sexual identity, the valorization of the ambiguity in her philosophy, the way she challenged the society, the way she inspired women and led them on the path of emancipation…
Access the full workshop description HERE