Feminist Link-o-rama!
New translation of Simone de Beavoir's Second Sex:
* Review at Barnes & Noble.
* The Toril Moi review it quotes at length originally posted at London Review of Books (Moi used to be one of my favorite feminist critics, but I have been out of touch with her work since college. The BP gave me what I consider one of the definite books on feminist criticism: Sexual/Textual Politics, which is short and easy to read as well as being an incredibly astute parsing of the state of the criticism. Last updated in 2002, it looks to be currently OOP.) This is an amazing---rip 'em another one---translation review with some amazingly funny examples of translation gone wrong. Personally, I can't believe the publishers didn't seek to have one of the leading Beauvoir scholars review/endorse the translations before publicatiob, since it sounds like there are some pretty significant errors here, not to mention a general lack of style.
* And while we're on the topic, here is a link to one of the sources I followed up on after writing my Vindication of Love post earlier this year, regarding Beauvoir's posthumous stoning.
* I read Beauvoir first in high school, turning to feminism after Betty Freidan's Feminine Mystique turned out NOT to be about how to be more alluring. I suspect I read Second Sex as a kind of manual, trying to understand what was normal about female sexuality. It was also not particularly helpful, except to suggest that there were a far-broader range of options than I had ever considered. I remember being passionately engaged with the text in a way I was not with Freidan. The bored housewives could hold no candle to French existentialists for a young and impressionable student.
Speaking of female sexuality, do you know about Stanford sex scholar Clelia Mosher? You should. Long before Kinsey's studies, she was polling 19C women about their bodies. Her research shows that the 19C lady enjoyed a romp as much as the rest of us do, though the confronted considerable more risk in doing so.
And, this one is less compelling, but seemed worth throwing into the mix: a review of Susan Pinker's The Sexual Paradox about the long-standing question of whether or not women and men want the same thing (or whether women should compete on terms set by men.) I'm not terribly keen on evolutionary psychology or this particular topic, but I thought some of you might be interested in a click.
ETA - Speaking of 'evolutionary-psychology': the NYTimes asks, can it save the study of English.
* Review at Barnes & Noble.
* The Toril Moi review it quotes at length originally posted at London Review of Books (Moi used to be one of my favorite feminist critics, but I have been out of touch with her work since college. The BP gave me what I consider one of the definite books on feminist criticism: Sexual/Textual Politics, which is short and easy to read as well as being an incredibly astute parsing of the state of the criticism. Last updated in 2002, it looks to be currently OOP.) This is an amazing---rip 'em another one---translation review with some amazingly funny examples of translation gone wrong. Personally, I can't believe the publishers didn't seek to have one of the leading Beauvoir scholars review/endorse the translations before publicatiob, since it sounds like there are some pretty significant errors here, not to mention a general lack of style.
* And while we're on the topic, here is a link to one of the sources I followed up on after writing my Vindication of Love post earlier this year, regarding Beauvoir's posthumous stoning.
* I read Beauvoir first in high school, turning to feminism after Betty Freidan's Feminine Mystique turned out NOT to be about how to be more alluring. I suspect I read Second Sex as a kind of manual, trying to understand what was normal about female sexuality. It was also not particularly helpful, except to suggest that there were a far-broader range of options than I had ever considered. I remember being passionately engaged with the text in a way I was not with Freidan. The bored housewives could hold no candle to French existentialists for a young and impressionable student.
Speaking of female sexuality, do you know about Stanford sex scholar Clelia Mosher? You should. Long before Kinsey's studies, she was polling 19C women about their bodies. Her research shows that the 19C lady enjoyed a romp as much as the rest of us do, though the confronted considerable more risk in doing so.
And, this one is less compelling, but seemed worth throwing into the mix: a review of Susan Pinker's The Sexual Paradox about the long-standing question of whether or not women and men want the same thing (or whether women should compete on terms set by men.) I'm not terribly keen on evolutionary psychology or this particular topic, but I thought some of you might be interested in a click.
ETA - Speaking of 'evolutionary-psychology': the NYTimes asks, can it save the study of English.