New Perspectives on Sartre

This volume deals with a number of topics that have not previously been specifically addressed before in a single text. A chapter on Sartre and religion talks about his thought in relation to Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism, while one on Sartre and children discusses his work in relation to the issues of freedom, pregnancy and autism. Beyond this, there are an additional seven chapters covering a wide variety of topics by leading scholars in the fields of philosophy, literature psychology, history and political thought. While prior publications on Sartre have generally divided his work into two periods, pre-and post-Marxist, this volume deliberately stresses a middle and final period as well. As representative of the middle period, there is an emphasis on Notebooks for an Ethics, while Sartre's last work, Hope Now, is also treated as being philosophically significant in its own right. This approach helps to cast a new light on what Sartre has to say about authenticity, childhood and consciousness as embodied, among other subjects. The volume also addresses many and diverse issues of current interest, including those of freedom, Marxism and Sartre's relation to ethics. There are sections of the book that deal with history and the historical situations that helped to shape Sartre's thought, as well as articles that deal with Sartre as a specifically French thinker. A chapter deals with Sartre's relation to women, and here the issues of maternity as problematic, plus authentic, adult relationships are discussed. Finally, in addition to authors in philosophy and literature, there are articles by a child psychiatrist and a clinical psychologist to help to provide new insights on Sartre's work. Even as an academic philosopher Sartre always remained an iconoclast and the aim of this book is, at least partially to capture and provide the reader with insight into this spirit.
About the Author: Adrian Mirvish has published widely in the area of continental philosophy, with emphasis on Sartre's ontology and existential psychoanalysis. A particular interest is Sartre's relation to gestalt psychology, and one of the prized possessions of his early career is a letter from Simone de Beauvoir expressing interest in the work he had done on this topic. His last publication was an article entitled Sartre and the Lived Body: Negation, Non-Positional Self Awareness and Hodological Space' which appeared in Sartre on the Body, an anthology edited by Katherine Morris (2010). He has served as president of the North American Sartre Society from 2005 -2007. Adrian van den Hoven was Executive Editor of Sartre Studies International from 1995-2005. He was twice elected President of the North American Sartre Society. He has translated Sartre's Truth and Existence and Hope Now: The1980 Interviews. He translated and edited Sartre and Camus: A Historic Confrontation (with D.Sprintzen). He edited Sartre Alive (with R.Aronson) and Sartre Today (with A.Leak). He has published on Sartre, Camus and Beauvoir. His article entitled Remaining Above the Fray or Getting your Hands Dirty: The Sartre/Camus quarrel as reinterpreted since the End of the Cold War' will be published by Expressions maghrebines.