Throughout the book, Deutscher shows us the creative and often conflicting ways in which Beauvoir appropriates and transforms the phenomenological, existential, anthropological, Marxist, critical race, and psychoanalytic insights of her predecessors and peers to address oppressive phenomena such as sexism, racism, and ageism. The animating concept that structures the text as a whole is "conversion," a term that Deutscher takes up from Beauvoir and uses both literally and metaphorically as a way of understanding Beauvoir's own philosophical methodology. Deutscher is thoroughly familiar with the growing body of Beauvoir scholarship and she does a masterful job of integrating key insights from Beauvoir's many commentators into her analysis. Meticulously researched, this book offers an original interpretation of central existential concepts including ambiguity, repetition, freedom, alterity, reciprocity, and sedimentation, and their changing meanings in Beauvoir's work. Penelope Deutscher's The Philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir: Ambiguity, Conversion, Resistance is a wonderful addition to the Beauvoirian canon.
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