This seminar proposes a focus on eroticism and the sexual act in the work and biography of Sartre, and in particular on the question of sadism, exploring the thesis that Sartre’s biography of Baudelaire and de Beauvoir’s essay on Sade indirectly represent and help us explore Sartre’s own eroticism, desire and sadism. The seminar makes use of references to fictional and non-fictional works alike, and to Sartre’s correspondence and journals. The analysis is also supported through a wide range of secondary critical sources, in particular articles by Christina Howells and Serge Doubrovsky. The focus on the physical materiality of sex and eroticism is accompanied by a strong thread of attention to the existential and psychological structures of sadism and masochism.

The seminar paper will be delivered in French.

14.30, meeting room (second floor)
University of Verona, Palazzo Zorzi
Lungadige Porta Vittoria 17, Verona