At the Threshold with Simone Weil: A Political Theory of Migration and Refuge
Duke University, PhD
Political Philosophy
Beyond Power: Simone Weil and the Notion of Authority
Beyond Power draws on the writings of Simone Weil (b. Paris, France, 1909, d. Ashford, UK, 1943) to construct a theory of authority that challenges conventional assumptions. Avery argues that neither science nor religion nor a political mandate can provide an adequate rationale for authority. Simone Weil’s electrifying insights, derived from her experience as a social activist, factory worker, and philosophy teacher, provide ways in which to think about the essential element of authority and take it into account more fully than usually seems possible. By focusing unflinchingly on what was sacred to herself and others in religion, politics, science, work, justice, and education, she achieved a kind of authority of her own. Avery devotes a chapter to each of these six subjects, as well as to an overview of the question of authority and a short account of Simone Weil’s life.
Beyond Power will be ideal for students and teachers of philosophy, politics, religion, and history, and the humanities. Those who admire the philosophy of Simone Weil will find a compelling overview of her work, while those interested in religious questions will find a fresh approach to thinking and talking about what makes human life meaningful. Avery offers new ways to examine the burning political, religious, and scientific issues of our time.
Lexington Books, 2008
Finding Freedom: Simone Weil, Hannah Arendt, and Herbert Marcuse on Post-Totalitarian Politics
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, MA
Crossing: Simone Weil, Mystics, Politics
PhD, University of California, Santa Barbara
Simone Weil on Colonialism: An Ethic of the Other
In 1931, Simone Weil read an article by Louis Roubaud in the Petit Parisien that exposed the Yen Bay massacre in Indochina. That article opened Weil’s eyes, and from then until her death in exile in 1943, she cared most deeply about the French colonial situation. Weil refused to accept the contradiction between the image of France as a champion of the rights of man and the reality of France’s exploitation and oppression of the peoples in its territories.
Weil wrote thirteen articles or letters about the situation, writings originally published in French journals or in French collections of her work. J. P. Little’s fluid and clear translations finally introduce to English-speaking scholars and students this important element of Weil’s political consciousness.
J.P. Little, ed. & trans., New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003
J. P. Little, one of the world’s most respected scholars of Simone Weil, is the author of Simone Weil: Waiting on Truth and numerous articles and conference presentations on Weil’s life and work. She is lecturer in French (emerita) at St. Patrick’s College, Dublin.
Simone Weil on the Need for Loyalty: A Consideration of The Need for Roots
McMaster University, MA
The Theme of Mediation in the Writings of Simone Weil
A study of the theme of mediation necessarily involves a consideration of the two poles between which mediation takes place. This study therefore begins with an investigation of what Simone Weil saw to be man’s exile in this world, and his desire for the Good which is God. Since God is unknown and unknowable, this desire cannot be focussed on any particular object, and the soul must experience a void in which there is no compensation for spiritual energy expended. This process is unnatural, however, and painful to man, and he is frequently tempted to focus his desire for the Good on some earthly object; society, by creating the illusion of being greater than the individual, often fulfills this role, and becomes the object of man’s idolatry. If man refuses this idolatry and is willing to hold the contradiction posed by his dual nature he will find that all earthly creatures and objects can be mediators between himself and the God he desires. In this way exile becomes a fulfilment, and the whole natural realm can speak to man of his supernat1;.ral home. All mediation-themes reach their culmination in Christ, whose suffering is seen as a perpetual cosmic process reconciling the universe with its creator. The study is therefore presented in three sections: dualism, idolatry (false mediation), and mediation proper. These are fully illustrated by reference to the whole sphere of Simone Weil’s meditations, religious, political and philosophical.
Durham University, PhD dissertation, 1970
The Need for Roots
Arthur Wills trans., Arthur Wills trans., preface by T.S. Eliot, Routledge Kegan Paul
