In Praise of Risk

Anne Dufourmantelle (Author) Anne Dufourmantelle, philosopher and psychoanalyst, taught at the European Graduate School and wrote monthly columns for the Paris newspaper Liberation. Her books in English include Power of Gentleness: Meditations on the Risk of Being; Blind Date: Sex and Philosophy; and, with Jacques Derrida, Of Hospitality. Steven Miller (Translator) Steven Miller is Associate Professor of English and Director of the Center for Psychoanalysis and Culture at the University at Buffalo, SUNY. He is author of War After Death: On Violence and Its Limits and translator of books by Jean- Luc Nancy, Catherine Malabou, and Etienne Balibar.

Translator's Introduction: The Risk of Reading ix To Risk One's Life 1 Eurydice Saved 4 Minuscule Magical Dependencies 8 Voluntary Servitude and Disobedience 11 In Suspense 13 At the Risk of Passion 17 Leaving the Family 22 Forgetting, Anamnesis, Deliverance 24 Incurable (In)fidelities 29 Zero Risk? 33 How (Not) to Become Oneself . . . 36 Being in Secret 39 Befriending Our Fears 41 At the Risk of Being Sad 46 At the Risk of Being Free 49 The Time They Call Lost 52 Dead Alive 55 Of a Perception Infinitely Vaster . . . 59 Anxiety, Lack-Spiritual Hunger? 63 Farewell Magic World: Beyond Disappointment 67 Life-Mine, Yours 70 At the Risk of the Unknown 72 At the Risk of Being Carnal 74 May There Be an End to Our Torment . . . 79 Breaking Up 82 At the Risk of Speech 86 Solitudes 89 Laughter, Dreaming-Beyond the Impasse 93 Hope No More 101 Once Upon a Time, the "Athenaeum" . . . or, Why Risk Romanticism? 106 Risking Belief 111 Risking Variation 114 The Event: Hyperpresence 119 Intimate Prophecy 122 At the Risk of Bedazzlement 127 Desire, Body, Writing 130 Healing? 139 An Other Language 142 Risking Scandal 145 Taking the Risk of Childhood 148 Assiduity 151 Risking the Future 154 At the Risk of Beauty 158 At the Risk of Spirit 162 Risking the Universal? 164 Hauntings 167 Spirals, Ellipses, Metaphors, Anamorphoses 170 Envisaging Night 173 Revolutions 176 At the Risk of Going Through Hell (Eurydice) 180 Notes 187

This very rich book will have enormous appeal for readers interested in the intersection of philosophy, psychology, psychoanalysis, and humanistic inquiry. It productively challenges the assumptions of all these disciplines in novel ways and offers, in the final analysis, a redemptive path through that which matters to us most: living and dying well. Highly recommended.-- "Choice" . . . In Praise of Risk, defies classification. It is not an ordinary philosophical or psychoanalytic study but an extremely original mixture of the two.-- "Sofia Philosophical Review" . . . Anne Dufourmantelle's In Praise of Risk makes a number of careful interventions related to the notion of risk, intercut with narratives of her own sessions as an analyst.-- "Cultural Critique" Magisterial. Dufourmantelle shows how life is universalized in risk and how recognizing this fact means enlisting in a fraternity among humans.---Antonio Negri To live is to accept a certain degree of risk--the risk of hairline disappointments, of a too forceful will to believe, of brusque rejections that fatigue the soul, of being misunderstood yet again, of being undone without ever being saved. We could venture the idiom 'life goes on' with cynicism or despair, but we could also do so with the measure of desire. Anne Dufourmantelle's beautiful book places us on the side of life and love, showing us the power of psychoanalytic reflection on those moments when we are asked to find the courage to risk ourselves on behalf of the other.---Jamieson Webster, author of Conversion Disorder