When Anne Dufourmantelle drowned in a heroic attempt to save two
children caught in rough seas, obituaries around the world rarely
failed to recall that she was the author of a book entitled In
Praise of Risk, implying that her death confirmed the ancient adage
that to philosophize is to learn how to die. Now available in
English, this magnificent and already much-discussed book indeed
offers a trenchant critique of the psychic work the modern world
devotes to avoiding risk. Yet this is not a book on how to die but
on how to live. For Dufourmantelle, risk entails an encounter not
with an external threat to life but with something hidden in life
that conditions our approach to such ordinary risks as
disobedience, passion, addiction, leaving family, and solitude
Keeping jargon to a minimum, Dufourmantelle weaves philosophical
reflections together with clinical case histories. The everyday
fears, traumas, and resistances that therapy addresses brush up
against such broader concerns as terrorism, insurance, addiction,
artistic creation, and political revolution. Taking up a project
than joins the work of many French thinkers, such as Jacques Lacan,
Jacques Derrida, Jean-Luc Nancy, Helene Cixous, Giorgio Agamben,
and Catherine Malabou, Dufourmantelle works to dislodge Western
philosophy, psychoanalysis, ethics, and politics from the
redemptive logic of sacrifice. She discovers the kernel of a future
beyond annihilation where one might least expect to find it, hidden
in the unconscious. In an era defined by enhanced security
measures, border walls, trigger warnings, and endless litigation,
Dufourmantelle's masterwork provides a much-needed celebration of
the risks that define what it means to live.
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