Beauvais, Clementine orcid.org/0000-0002-5854-4866 (2015) Simone de Beauvoir and the Ambiguity of Childhood. Paragraph. ISSN 0264-8334
Abstract
This article explores Simone de Beauvoir's conceptualization of childhood and its importance for her existentialist thought. Beauvoir's theorization of childhood, I argue, offers a sophisticated portrayal of the child and of the adult–child relationship: the child is not a normal ‘other’ for the adult, but what I call a temporal other, perceived by adults as an ambiguous being; in turn, childhood is conceptualized as the origin of the ambiguity of adulthood. This foregrounding of childhood has important implications for Beauvoir's existentialism, in particular regarding her ethics. Through the adult–child relationship, her vision of an ethical relation to otherness emerges — one which foregrounds both the violence and the mutual liberation involved in encounters with the other.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of York |
Academic Units: | The University of York > Faculty of Social Sciences (York) > Education (York) |
Depositing User: | Pure (York) |
Date Deposited: | 13 Jun 2017 10:30 |
Last Modified: | 21 Jan 2025 17:27 |
Status: | Published |
Refereed: | Yes |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:117663 |