Weil's influence on Michel Serres

I am constantly amazed at the number of people that have been influenced by Weil.

The late philosopher Michel Serres, member of the French Academy and philosophy professor at Stanford left mathematics to study philosophy after reading Gravity and Grace.  
See:  https://news.stanford.edu/2019/06/19/renowned-french-philosopher-michel-serres-dies-88/

Simone Weil's papers

In the last week I have received two inquiries about how to locate the original of Weil's writings. So I thought I would try to post this more widely.



The Institute for Advanced Studies in their Historical Studies - Social Science Library located in Princeton has a microfilm copy:


Their catalogue https://library.ias.edu/hs lists the following:

Papers [34 microfilm reels]           by Weil, Simone, 1909-1943     Note:  Deposited by Andre Weil, the originals are in the Bibliothèque Nationale. Please see the librarian for use.

The link below will take you to the Bibliothèque nationale de France record for her archives -


https://archivesetmanuscrits.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cc58821s



Note you need to email the BnF if you are interested in making arrangement to view her papers.

Rachel Bespaloff and Weil

So far I have identified 13 works comparing Weil and Bespaloff:

Benfey, Christopher. 2006. "A Tale of Two Iliads." In Artists, intellectuals, and World War II : the Pontigny Encounters at Mount Holyoke College, 1942-1944, edited by Christopher E. G. Benfey and Karen Remmler, 207-219. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.

Beye, Charles Rowan. 2006. Homer in the Twentieth century : Simone Weil and Rachel Bespaloff. Menlo Park, CA: Occasional Works. Reprint, Adapted from Simone & Rachel:Together At Last  a review of  War and the Iliad by Simone Weil and Rachel Bespaloff published in greekworks.com 14 October 2005.

Bruce, Cicero. 2006. "Reading the Iliad in the Light of Eternity."  Modern Age 48 (1):48-58.

Burke, Catherine. 2019. "Female Homers: A Feminist "notos?"." In Homer's Daughters: Women's Responses to Homer in the Twentieth Century and Beyondedited by Fiona Cox, Elena Theodorakopoulos, edited by Fiona Cox and Elena Theodorakopoulos, 57-91. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Devaux, André A. 2004. " Rachel Bespaloff et Simone Weil."  Cahiers Simone Weil 27 (2):155-6.

Fusini, Nadia. 2013. "Simone." In Hannah e le altre 17-48. Torino: Einaudi.

Ghirardelli, Luca. 2012. Simone Weil: Dall'analisi della forza ad una pedagogia del miglioramento interiore, Collana Ospiti. Dogliani: Sensibili alle foglie.

Kohn, Jerome, and Elisabeth Young-Bruehl. 2006. "Hannah Arendt on Action and Violence with Reference to Simone Weil and Rachel Bespaloff on Homer's Iliad : A Conversation " In Artists, intellectuals, and World War II : the Pontigny encounters at Mount Holyoke College, 1942-1944, edited by Christopher E. G. Benfey and Karen Remmler, 220-39. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.

Mounic, Anne.2013. "Autour de l'Iliade, deux réflexions sur la force : Rachel Bespaloff et Simone Weil." In L'esprit du récit, ou, La chair du devenir : éthique et création littéraire, 442-455. Paris: Honoré Champion.

Osborn, Ronald. 2008. "Geometries of Force in Homer's Iliad: Two Readings."  Humanitas 21 (1-2):168-178.

Pachet, Pierre. 2004. " L'essai de Rachel Bespaloff sur l'Iliade: Des précisions de Pierre Pachet "  La Quinzaine Littéraire 889:31.

Schein, Seth L. 2016. ""War - What is it Good For?" in Homer's Iliad and Four Receptions." In Homeric Epic and its Reception: Interpretive Essays, 149-170. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Schein, Seth L. 2018. "Reading Homer in Dark Times: Rachel Bespaloff's On the Iliaid."  Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics 26 (1):17-36.

Levertov and Simone Weil

Just encountered a 2019 work on Levertov and Weil:

Wallace, Cynthia. 2019. ""passionate/reverence, active love" : Levertov and Weil in the Communion of Struggle." In "This Need to Dance / This Need to Kneel": Denise Levertov and the Poetics  of Faith, edited by P. Murphy and Melissa Bradshaw, 127-139. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock.

Also have these works in the database:

Schloesser, Steven. 2005. ""Not behind but within": Sacramentum et res."  Renascence 58 (1):17-39.

Block, Ed. 2008. "Poetry, Attentiveness and Prayer: One Poet's Lesson."  New Blackfriars 89 (1020):162-176. doi: 10.1111/j.1741-2005.2007.00195.x.

Wright- Bushman, Katy. 2013. "A Poetics of Consenting Attention: Simone Weil's Prayer and the Poetry of Denise Levertov."  Christianity & Literature 62 (3):369-392.

The Iliad

Catherine Burke in a recent article entitled "Female Homers: A Feminist "notos?" published on pages 57-91 of the Oxford University Press work Homer's Daughters: Women's Responses to Homer in the Twentieth Century and Beyond, edited by Fiona Cox and Elena Theodorakopoulos extensively comments on Weil's Iliad and notes that there is a "surprising dearth of literary scholarship" on this topic (p.58).   A search in my master database reveals over 25 works on Weil's Iliad from a literary perspective.

Void, Fromm and Weil

Joan Braune has just recently published an article in Journal of Hate Studies that extensively compares Weil and Erich Fromm.

Braune, J. (2019). Void and Idol: A Critical Theory Analysis of the Neo-fascist “Alt-Right”. Journal of Hate Studies, 15(1), 11-37. https://jhs.press.gonzaga.edu/articles/abstract/10.33972/jhs.159/

Weil and hierarchy

Jonathan Wolff in his 2018 presidential address to the Aristotelian Society extensively references Weil, focussing on her writings on hierarchy.

See draft version:

https://www.aristoteliansociety.org.uk/pdf/jonathan_wolff.pdf