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The Existentialist Offensive
@rethinkexistent.bsky.social
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The Penguin Book of Existentialist Philosophy: bit.ly/PBEPBwlPbk
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rethinkexistent.bsky.social
The Existentialist Offensive @rethinkexistent.bsky.social · 11d
It is 80 years since Beauvoir and Sartre gave the word 'existentialism' a definition ...

... in a campaign of publications and events that Beauvoir later called 'the existentialist offensive'.

To celebrate, this feed will mark each key moment (including political events) for the next three months.
Black-and-white image. The first ever photo of Beauvoir and Sartre together, taken at a travelling fair visiting Porte d'Orléans in Paris, 1929. Beauvoir is pointing a gun and has her eyes closed. Sartre is by her side, hand on her shoulder, pipe in his mouth. The attraction required you to fire at a target. If you hit the bullseye, a camera was triggered and you got to keep the photo. Beauvoir's eyes are closed presumably as an involuntary reaction to the gun firing. Otherwise she hit the bullseye without looking!
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rethinkexistent.bsky.social
The Existentialist Offensive @rethinkexistent.bsky.social · 7d
2 October 1945:

The day after Les Temps Modernes is launched, Sartre publishes the first novel in his series Les Chemins de la Liberté:

L’Âge de Raison is set in the summer of 1938 as Europe teeters on the brink of war.
Cover of first edition. Blank white cover with centred text: JEAN-PAUL SARTRE Les chemins de la liberté I L'âge de raison roman nrf GALLIMARD Cover of current Penguin Modern Classics edition of the English translation – The Age of Reason.
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rethinkexistent.bsky.social
The Existentialist Offensive @rethinkexistent.bsky.social · 7d
Two chapters of the projected fourth and final novel in the series were published in Les Temps Modernes in 1949, but the book was never finished.

Fragments of the book were gathered together in a posthumous edition of Sartre’s novels.

They are available in English as The Last Chance.
Cover of first edition. Blank white cover with photo of Sartre in centre of top one-third of the cover. Below that the centred text: Jean-Paul Sartre Œuvres romanesques EDITION ÉTABLIE PAR MICHEL CONTAT ET MICHEL RYBALKA AVEC LA COLLABORATION DE GENEVIÈVE IDT ET DE GEORGE H. BAUER BIBLIOTHÈQUE DE LA PLÉIADE nrf Cover of the English translation. Whole cover is an eerie photo of what appears to be a rather spacious prison cell wth one bed in the middle ground and behind that a door made of bars with light shining through. the whole image is in shades of red. Text is in the bottom half of the cover, in the foreground of the image. In white lettering: JEAN-PAUL SARTRE THE LAST CHANCE and then in crimson red: ROADS TO FREEDOM IV
rethinkexistent.bsky.social
The Existentialist Offensive @rethinkexistent.bsky.social · 7d
It will be followed two months later by Le Sursis (The Reprieve) …

… and then four years later by La Mort dans l’Âme (Iron in the Soul).

The BBC broadcast a superb thirteen-episode TV adaptation of the first three novels in 1970.
Image of the central character Mathieu (played by Michael Bryant) aiming a gun from a beseiged bell tower in one of the final scenes of the TV show. Image of the central character Mathieu (played by Michael Bryant) actually firing the gun from a beseiged bell tower in one of the final scenes of the TV show.
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rethinkexistent.bsky.social
The Existentialist Offensive @rethinkexistent.bsky.social · 7d
2 October 1945:

The day after Les Temps Modernes is launched, Sartre publishes the first novel in his series Les Chemins de la Liberté:

L’Âge de Raison is set in the summer of 1938 as Europe teeters on the brink of war.
Cover of first edition. Blank white cover with centred text: JEAN-PAUL SARTRE Les chemins de la liberté I L'âge de raison roman nrf GALLIMARD Cover of current Penguin Modern Classics edition of the English translation – The Age of Reason.
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rethinkexistent.bsky.social
The Existentialist Offensive @rethinkexistent.bsky.social · 8d
Agnès Poirier tells the story of the journal’s first year here:
When Sartre and Beauvoir Started a Magazine - Longreads
In 1945, Les Temps modernes shocked the world with its pessimism and grim determination, and catapulted its founders into intellectual superstardom.
longreads.com
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rethinkexistent.bsky.social
The Existentialist Offensive @rethinkexistent.bsky.social · 8d
This first issue includes Sartre’s essay ‘The End of the War’

–– which now opens the middle section of The Penguin Book of Existentialist Philosophy – 'The Existentialist Offensive'.
The Penguin Book of Existentialist Philosophy
'Superb ... I can't imagine a better way of meeting the existentialists in all their variety' - Sarah Bakewell, author of At the Existentialist Café ‘We are thrown into the world at every moment, an...
www.penguin.co.uk
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rethinkexistent.bsky.social
The Existentialist Offensive @rethinkexistent.bsky.social · 8d
1 October 1945:

The first issue of Les Temps Modernes is published –– a monthly cultural and political journal led by Sartre and Beauvoir, with a host of other major figures on the editorial board.

The journal is named after a Charlie Chaplin film. Pablo Picasso designed the cover.
Cover of the first issue of Les Temps Modernes. Blank white page with the following column of centred text: Les Temps Modernes 1re année REVUE MENSUELLE n° 1 1er Octobre 1945 JEAN-PAUL SARTRE - Présentation. RICHARD WRIGHT - Le feu dans la nuée. MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY - La guerre a eu lieu. FRANCIS PONGE - Notes premières de l'homme. RAYMOND ARON - Les désillusions de la liberté. JACQUES-LAURENT BOST - Le dernier des métiers. VIES Vie d'une sinistrée. TÉMOIGNAGES JEAN ROY - Les morts. EXPOSÉS F. PASCHE, RAYMOND ARON, JEAN-PAUL SARTRE LEENHART, PHILLIP TOYNBEE, IVAN MOFFAT, JEAN POUILLON. TM Rédaction, administration : 5, rue Sébastien-Bottin, Paris
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rethinkexistent.bsky.social
The Existentialist Offensive @rethinkexistent.bsky.social · 8d
#philsky #philosophysky
rethinkexistent.bsky.social
The Existentialist Offensive @rethinkexistent.bsky.social · 11d
It is 80 years since Beauvoir and Sartre gave the word 'existentialism' a definition ...

... in a campaign of publications and events that Beauvoir later called 'the existentialist offensive'.

To celebrate, this feed will mark each key moment (including political events) for the next three months.
Black-and-white image. The first ever photo of Beauvoir and Sartre together, taken at a travelling fair visiting Porte d'Orléans in Paris, 1929. Beauvoir is pointing a gun and has her eyes closed. Sartre is by her side, hand on her shoulder, pipe in his mouth. The attraction required you to fire at a target. If you hit the bullseye, a camera was triggered and you got to keep the photo. Beauvoir's eyes are closed presumably as an involuntary reaction to the gun firing. Otherwise she hit the bullseye without looking!
2 10
rethinkexistent.bsky.social
The Existentialist Offensive @rethinkexistent.bsky.social · 11d
It is 80 years since Beauvoir and Sartre gave the word 'existentialism' a definition ...

... in a campaign of publications and events that Beauvoir later called 'the existentialist offensive'.

To celebrate, this feed will mark each key moment (including political events) for the next three months.
Black-and-white image. The first ever photo of Beauvoir and Sartre together, taken at a travelling fair visiting Porte d'Orléans in Paris, 1929. Beauvoir is pointing a gun and has her eyes closed. Sartre is by her side, hand on her shoulder, pipe in his mouth. The attraction required you to fire at a target. If you hit the bullseye, a camera was triggered and you got to keep the photo. Beauvoir's eyes are closed presumably as an involuntary reaction to the gun firing. Otherwise she hit the bullseye without looking!
4 12
rethinkexistent.bsky.social
The Existentialist Offensive @rethinkexistent.bsky.social · 14d
#philsky #fanon

"The collective unconscious is not governed by cerebral heredity: it is the consequence of what I shall call an impulsive cultural imposition"

— Frantz Fanon
Cover of The Penguin Book of Existentialist Philosophy, featuring Marie Raymond's painting Arabesques ou Variations sur la volute, 1948, oil on canvas, 91 x 72.5 cm, © ADAGP, Paris, banque d’images de l’ADAGP Painting is an abstract of bold curves, lines, rectangles, and the suggestions of triangles in yellows, whites, greys, and black. Right-side semi-profile head and shoulders colour photo of Frantz Fanon.
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rethinkexistent.bsky.social
The Existentialist Offensive @rethinkexistent.bsky.social · 15d
It’s a description, not a definition — hence ‘an’, not ‘the’ or ‘any’.
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rethinkexistent.bsky.social
The Existentialist Offensive @rethinkexistent.bsky.social · 16d
#philsky #beauvoir

"Existentialist thought is an effort to reconcile the objective and the subjective, the absolute and the relative, the timeless and the historical"

– Simone de Beauvoir
Right-side semi-profile black-and white photo of Simone de Beauvoir looking up from writing. Taken in 1947. Cover of The Penguin Book of Existentialist Philosophy, featuring Marie Raymond's painting Arabesques ou Variations sur la volute, 1948, oil on canvas, 91 x 72.5 cm, © ADAGP, Paris, banque d’images de l’ADAGP Painting is an abstract of bold curves, lines, rectangles, and the suggestions of triangles in yellows, whites, greys, and black.
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rethinkexistent.bsky.social
The Existentialist Offensive @rethinkexistent.bsky.social · 19d
#philsky #sartre

"If the whole of humanity continues to live, it will do so not simply because it has been born but because it will have decided to prolong its life"

– Jean-Paul Sartre
Cover of The Penguin Book of Existentialist Philosophy, featuring Marie Raymond's painting Arabesques ou Variations sur la volute, 1948, oil on canvas, 91 x 72.5 cm, © ADAGP, Paris, banque d’images de l’ADAGP Painting is an abstract of bold curves, lines, rectangles, and the suggestions of triangles in yellows, whites, greys, and black. Left-side semi-profile black-and-white photo of Jean-Paul Sartre, taken by Roger Parry in 1938.
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shakespeareandcompany.com
Shakespeare and Company @shakespeareandcompany.com · 21d
Be existential to each other…
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rethinkexistent.bsky.social
The Existentialist Offensive @rethinkexistent.bsky.social · 27d
#philsky

The cover art for the forthcoming ––

✨The Penguin Book of Existentialist Philosophy ✨

–– is Marie Raymond's painting:

✨ Arabesques ou Variations sur la volute ✨ (1948)

For more on Marie Raymond, including images of many paintings, visit her archive's website: marieraymond.com
Cover of The Penguin Book of Existentialist Philosophy featuring Marie Raymond's painting Arabesques ou Variations sur la volute, 1948, oil on canvas, 91 x 72.5 cm, © ADAGP, Paris, banque d’images de l’ADAGP The painting is an abstract in yellows, whites, greys, and black, combining curves, straight lines, rectangles, and partial triangles. Below it is the current Penguin Classics white band. Below that in a black rectangle are the book title and 'edited by Jonathan Webber' in white text.
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jonathanwebber.bsky.social
Jonathan Webber @jonathanwebber.bsky.social · 29d
Coming soon ––

The Penguin Book of Existentialist Philosophy
edited by me

:: available now to pre-order from all good bookshops (and that bad one) ::

–– contents pages are in the thread below.

#philsky
Image is book cover with the release date beneath: 13 November 2025. Artwork on the book cover is Marie Raymond's painting Arabesques ou Variations sur la volute, 1948, oil on canvas, 91 x 72.5 cm, © ADAGP, Paris, banque d’images de l’ADAGP – an abstract painting in yellows, greys, whites, and black. Book is published in Penguin Classics.
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aidanmcglynn.bsky.social
Aidan McGlynn @aidanmcglynn.bsky.social · Sep 7
'This is the Simone de Beauvoir Society' fits to that song in The Italian Job, in case you're wondering what will be looping through your mind 5 hours from now
feministphilosophy.bsky.social
Feminist Ethics and Social Theory (FEAST) @feministphilosophy.bsky.social · Sep 7
Listen up! Submit your abstract for the 2026 Beauvoir Society conference on "Beauvoir & Reproduction: Politics, Labour, Biology, Lived Experience"🔥

Proposal abstracts are due **September 22, 2025**
Conference is May 2026 in Klagenfurt, Austria

Keynotes: Sylvie Chaperon & Stella Sandford
2026 Conference
Pour la version française , choisir le drapeau français en haut à gauche du site !
beauvoir.weebly.com
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cardiffphilosophy.bsky.social
Cardiff Philosophy @cardiffphilosophy.bsky.social · Aug 19
✨Congratulations to our doctoral student Thom Hamer ✨

whose paper

✨ 'A Case for Contingent Absurdity' ✨

has just been published in

✨ European Journal of Philosophy ✨

Llongyfarchiadau, Thom! Gefeliciteerd!
A Case for Contingent Absurdity
A popular view on existential absurdity holds that if life is absurd, it must be inescapably so. In opposition to this view, I argue that the concept of existential absurdity allows for life to be co...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
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rethinkexistent.bsky.social
The Existentialist Offensive @rethinkexistent.bsky.social · Aug 1
Probably best to read the book.
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rethinkexistent.bsky.social
The Existentialist Offensive @rethinkexistent.bsky.social · Aug 1
In 1984, HBO made a three-hour TV film of it starring Jodie Foster, which was then edited down for the French market into a 40-minute cinema release with dubbed dialogue.
Poster for VHS release of the English language version. In the main image, Jodie Foster is central and in the foreground flanked by Sam Neill and Michael Ontkean slightly behind her. They all look rather serious. Superimposed in front of them there is a knife bloodily stabbing a Nazi swastika. The film's strapline is "An obsession stronger than love. More violent than war". Poster for cinema release of French version. Essentially the same as the English language VHS cover except for some reason Foster and Neill are both looking out towards the viewer and smiling in a slightly dopey way. Guess they're supposed to look like they're in love, but they really just look rather vacant. And weirdly content.
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rethinkexistent.bsky.social
The Existentialist Offensive @rethinkexistent.bsky.social · Aug 1
It is available in English under the title The Blood of Others
Cover of first English edition of Beauvoir's The Blood of Others, published in 1948 by Secker & Warburg in USA and Lindsay Drummond in UK. Along the bottom of the cover image (which has title and author at top) is the legend: Recommended by the Book Society Cover of current Penguin Modern Classics edition of the book, with cartoony abstract artwork.
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rethinkexistent.bsky.social
The Existentialist Offensive @rethinkexistent.bsky.social · Aug 1
80 years ago today ...

1 August 1945

Beauvoir published her second novel, Le Sang des autres. Set in Paris during the outbreak of the second world war, the novel explores tensions between individual relationships and political commitment.
Cover of the first edition of Beauvoir's novel Le Sang des Autres, in the classic and rather plain Gallimard style.
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rethinkexistent.bsky.social
The Existentialist Offensive @rethinkexistent.bsky.social · Jul 29
(Beauvoir readers: apologies for the erroneous ‘de’ in these articles.)
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rethinkexistent.bsky.social
The Existentialist Offensive @rethinkexistent.bsky.social · Jul 29
2. A longer read on what social psychology can learn about prejudices and stereotypes from the existentialisms of Beauvoir and Fanon ::

#Fanon100 #philsky
What existentialist philosophy reveals about prejudices | Aeon Essays
The existentialist philosophies of Simone de Beauvoir and Frantz Fanon offer important insights into the nature of prejudice
aeon.co
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rethinkexistent.bsky.social
The Existentialist Offensive @rethinkexistent.bsky.social · Jul 29
Two more free Rethinking Existentialism articles to celebrate #Fanon100 from the ever excellent @aeon.co magazine ::

1. A short piece on sedimentation in the existentialisms of Beauvoir and Fanon ::
Sedimentation: the existentialist challenge to stereotypes | Aeon Ideas
From stereotypes via sedimentation to behaviour: how existentialism can help us understand ourselves today
aeon.co
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