Programme "Beauvoir et 'La lesbienne'"/ Program Beauvoir and 'The Lesbian'"

Registration/Inscription

17th–18th November, 2025/17–18 novembre 2025
[EN] 
Online Symposium organized by Thomas Chesworth and Emma McNicol, hosted by the International Simone de Beauvoir Society
In 2020, philosopher Paul B. Preciado publicly criticised Sylvie le Bon de Beauvoir for her interpretation of Simone de Beauvoir’s newly discovered novel, The Inseparables, as a novel about friendship. The Inseparables, he argued, is unquestionably a lesbian novel. This dialogue is one among many that have emerged following the discovery and publication of this novel in 2020, which has reignited earlier discussions of the relationship between Beauvoir and lesbianism. Historically, this conversation has centred upon Beauvoir’s controversial chapter on “The Lesbian” in The Second Sex; however, with the wealth of new material made more widely available in recent years (The Inseparables, letters, student diaries, translations, etc.), as well as recent developments in contemporary queer theory, the question of the relationship between Beauvoir and the lesbian reasserts itself as a fundamental tension in Beauvoir’s life and work. This symposium will provide a space to revisit this question, discussing the ways in which a consideration of the role of lesbianism in Beauvoir’s thought might generate new readings of her philosophy, politics, criticism, and literature.
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[FR] 
Symposium en ligne organisé par Thomas Chesworth et Emma McNicol, avec la Société internationale Simone de Beauvoir
En 2020, le philosophe Paul B. Preciado a publiquement critiqué l’interprétation de Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir selon laquelle Les Inséparables, texte récemment découvert, est un roman sur l’amitié. Les Inséparables, selon lui, est incontestablement un roman lesbien. Il s’agit d’un des nombreux débats sur les rapports de Beauvoir au lesbianisme qui ont vu le jour suite à la découverte et à la publication du roman en 2020, et qui ont relancé d’anciennes discussions. Celles-ci se sont historiquement centrées sur le chapitre controversé du Deuxième sexe, “La Lesbienne”. Cependant, avec l’abondance de nouveaux documents rendus plus largement disponibles ces dernières années (Les Inséparables, lettres, journaux, traductions, etc.), ainsi que les développements récents des études queer contemporaines, la question de la relation entre Beauvoir et “la lesbienne” se réaffirme comme une tension fondamentale dans la vie et l’œuvre de Beauvoir. Ce symposium offrira un espace pour revisiter cette question, en discutant de la manière dont une considération du rôle du lesbianisme dans la pensée de Beauvoir pourrait générer de nouvelles lectures de sa philosophie, de sa politique, de sa critique et de sa littérature.


Program/Programme

Opening remarks (New York 02:15; Paris 08:15; New Delhi 12:45; Melbourne 18:15)

Panel 1: Beauvoir’s Lesbian Ethics/L’éthique lesbienne de Beauvoir
New York 02:30–04:00; Paris 08:30–10:00; New Delhi 13:00–14:30; Melbourne 18:30–20:00
Lucie Boulay - Expérience lesbienne vécue : une transcendance rendue ?
Talia Fell - Authenticity and “The Lesbian”
Marie Günther - Transcendence, Existentialism, and Oppression in Simone de Beauvoir's Les Inséparables

Break/Pause (15 minutes)
Panel 2: Beauvoir as a Critic of Heterosexuality/Beauvoir, critique de l’hétérosexualité
New York 04:15–05:45; Paris 10:15–11:45; New Delhi 14:45–16:15; Melbourne 20:15–21:45
Christian Meyer - Lesbianism as Gender Nonconformity in The Second Sex
Thomas Chesworth - Ambiguous Lesbians: Beauvoirian Anti-Essentialism in Monique Wittig’s ‘One is Not Born a Woman’
Alexandra Umarova - The Inseparables as a Critique of Heterosexuality, and "The Lesbian" from The Second Sex as a Critique of Lesbianism
Break/Pause (15 minutes)
Panel 3: Blurring the Boundaries Between Friendship and the Erotic/Estomper les frontières entre l’amitié et l’érotisme
New York 06:00–07:00; Paris 12:00–13:00; New Delhi 16:30–17:30; Melbourne 22:00–23:00
Madeleine Banatvala - Blurred boundaries and the Ineffable: Beauvoir on same-sex friendships and lesbian relationships in Les Inséparables
Simran Tapaswi - Lesbian Desire and the Asexual Erotic in Inseparables

LONG BREAK / LONGUE PAUSE

Panel 4: Reading the Lesbian/Lire la lesbienne
New York 13:00–15:00; Paris 19:00–21:00; New Delhi 23:30–01:30 (18/11); Melbourne 05:00–07:00 (18/11)
Ruth Thrush - Simone de Beauvoir and Modernist Lesbian Style
Marine Rouch - Readers of “the Lesbian” since the ’50s
Emma McNicol - Polyphony in La Lesbienne
Eleanor Kaufman - Beauvoir's Object Relations
Break/Pause (15 minutes)
Roundtable discussion/Table ronde: The Women’s Studies International Forum special issue, 40 years on/Le numéro spécial de Women’s Studies International Forum, 40 ans après
New York 15:15–16:30; Paris 21:15–22:30; New Delhi 01:45–03:00 (18/11); Melbourne 07:15–08:30 (18/11)
Discussants/Discutant·e·s: Sophia Millman, Claudia Bouliane, Alexandre Antolin
Chair/Modération: Thomas Chesworth