de Beauvoir class and paper

Hey everyone! I thought someone here might be able to help me. I'm a PhD student in social psychology with a certificate in Women's Studies. In order to get my WOST certificate, I have to take three courses in the WOST dept. One class I'm taking is on Simone de Beauvoir, who I absolutely love. Unfortunately, my course is in philosophy (my first in this area, and it's a grad level course!) which I know very little about. We're supposed to write a 20 page paper on de Beauvoir and I can't come up with a topic. Anybody have any suggestions? I know that's really broad, but honestly, I don't know enough about philosophy to even offer any direction. I was reading a little Sarte and I thought the concept of mauvais foi (sp?) was interesting, but I'm not sure how much of this concept de Beauvoir actually uses. Any help you can offer would be much appreciated! Thanks, guys!

Hi--I have read some of Simone de Beavoir's work, and I would think that, especially considering your WOST certificate, The Second Sex would be a good book to look into. Obviously, that's too broad on its own, but you could focus on something like Part III, Myth's, and then more narrow into chapter 10. You could pick an author or two that de Beauvoir discusses and then discuss how she supports her own view regarding this author. Then you could research both the other authors work and refer as needed to other work within The Second Sex and her other works. eh?

Philosophy and Gender

Is The Second Sex Beauvoir's Application of Sartrean Existentialism?

http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Gend/GendSimo.htm

this site is just full of ideas i think you could expand on.

ok... last input. as a cross reference for you:

Feminist Theory and the Philosophies of Man by Andrea Nye (Paperback - Oct 19, 1989)


Excerpt - page 80: "... stratagems which he labels with the generic term bad faith ('mauvais foi'). Bad faith is always the attempt to draw back from ..."

from amazon.com

you might check out the index of this book on their website.

I'm posting this rather late. I'm hoping that it'll help future investigation into the matter.
I have also hit upon the concept of "Bad Faith" in Sartre's Being and Nothingness and it has a more profound, encompassing application. I believe you could draw a parallel between his comprehensive analysis on the subject and de Beauvoir's short consideration of it (I think she only mentions it in 4 or 5 places.)
I don't know if it's a purely original sartrean invention, but with the famous intimacy between Jean-Paul and Simone, I guess the concept must've taken a certain common significance. Just an idea...

Well you could investigate the idea of 'bad faith' and how it applies
to personal relationships. For example you could consider the
relationship between Sartre and Simone. The relationship between
philosophy and relationships between men and women.

Warning. I'm reading B & N with some friends this summer, and we noticed that the new abridged edition has dropped the section on bad faith altogether--perhaps because the editor perceived it as politically incorrect. But what is Being and Nothingness without bad faith? I mean, how could you even get the point of the rest of it? Bad Faith should be chapter two of Part One.

Skippersan,
Are you familiar with Bad Faith, Good Faith, and Authenticity in Sartre's Early Philosophy by Ronald E. Santoni?