Skye Cleary, "How to Be Authentic: Simone de Beauvoir and the Quest for Fulfillment" (St. Martin's Press, 2022)
Skye C. Cleary is a philosopher, writer and university teacher. In her new book\xa0How to Be Authentic: Simone de Beauvoir and the Quest for Fulfillment\xa0(St. Martin\u2019s Press, 2022) offers an introduction to Beauvoir\u2019s thinking about authenticity and how experience and situation shape the people we become. For Beauvoir, as an existential philosopher, we first exist and spend our lives not uncovering who we are but constructing our identity. Authenticity is the pursuit of self-creation and self-renewal. Under patriarchy women receive a set of myths that stand in the way of taking responsibility for our freedom. Through the experiences and the milestones of friendship, love, marriage, children and confronting death we have opportunity to choose who we will become. Because we live in interdependence with others, Beauvoir\u2019s philosophy of the self and genuine living allows others to also achieve freedom in self-creation through reciprocity. Cleary has given us a lively written book drawing not only from Beauvoir\u2019s life but her own experience in self-creation.\n\ufeffLilian Calles Barger\xa0is a cultural, intellectual and gender historian. Her most recent book is entitled\xa0The World Come of Age: An Intellectual History of Liberation Theology\xa0(Oxford University Press, 2018). Her current writing project is on the cultural and intellectual history of women and the origins of feminism seen through the emblematic life and work of Simone de Beauvoir.\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices\nSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies