In Praise of Risk

This book, whose original French edition achieved worldwide attention when its author died trying to save two children caught in a riptide, challenges the psychic work the modern world devotes to avoiding risk. Weaving psychoanalytic case studies together with philosophical reflections, Dufourmantelle shows how risk is an essential property of life, one that requires our embrace.

Anne Dufourmantelle (Author)
Anne Dufourmantelle, philosopher and psychoanalyst, taught at the European Graduate School and wrote monthly columns for the Paris newspaper Libération. 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 Étienne 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