On Wednesday, the 19th of February, a full university professor of the Modern History at the Universitat de València, Isabel Morant, will give a lecture “The Second Sex of Simone de Beauvoir and the contemporary feminism” in the Assembly Hall of the Faculty of Geography and History. Organised by Alumni UV group, the event will take place at 18:00 with no admission fees until the venue seats capacity is reached.
As the title suggests, the lecture will revolve around the book published by a French writer and philosopher in 1949, which turned into classics of feminist literature, and around fourth-wave feminism that lasts to date.
The Second Sex of Simone de Beauvoir is a book essential to the understanding of feminism and, thus, remains relevant even 70 years after its publication. During her talk, Morant will analyse history of the work, intellectual context that inspired it, basic lines of thought of Beauvoir, its reception by the French society in that time where it produced an immense scandal, as well as the reflection of the book in the Spanish society and its further interpretations done after publication.
Having become a kind of world manifest for women emancipation, the book introduced a maxim that the feminist movement of the 1970s would adopt later: “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” This moral has summarized the epistemological and political value of a work that inspires to ponder the future of women even now.
The lecture is held within the framework of Alumni Comparteix programme, an initiative of Alumni UV that aims to establish closer links between the group members. The students are encouraged to share their opinions on the key issues and take advantage of their long-standing relationships as former students and university friends to continue growing personally and professionally.
Isabel Morant is a full university professor of the Modern History and a member of the University Institute of Women’s Studies at the Universitat de València. She followed a teaching course at first and then switched to History, later obtaining her PhD in Geography and History. She has been a professor at the Department of Modern and Contemporary History since the 1980s, and her main research interests include the history of women and gender studies. She was the first female vice-principal of the Universitat de València, heading the Office of the Vice-Principal for University Extension from 1984 to 1990. In addition, she was the driving force of Cátedra editorial team where she published the collection Feminismos (Feminismos), edited between 1990 and 2014, and Historia de las Mujeres en España y América Latina (History of Women in Spain and Latin America). She has also published the books Discursos de la Vida Buena: Matrimonio, Mujer y Sexualidad en la Literatura Humanista (The Stories of Good Life: Marriage, Woman, and Sexuality in the Humanist Literature) in 2002 and Amor, Matrimonio y Familia: La Construcción Histórica de la Familia Moderna (Love, Marriage, and Family: The Historical Construction of a Modern Family) in 1998. She was a member of the Valencian Council for Culture from 2004 to 2011. In 2007, she received an award from the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT) for Promoting Equality through Knowledge; and in 2017, she was awarded an UV Medal for her work as a historian and her research about women throughout history and in everyday life.
