In Defense of Secrets

Awards:   Short-listed for The French-American Foundation Translation Prize 2022
Author:   Anne Dufourmantelle ,  Lindsay Turner
Publisher:   Fordham University Press
ISBN:  

9780823289226


Pages:   160
Publication Date:   05 January 2021
Format:   Hardback
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
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In Defense of Secrets


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Awards

  • Short-listed for The French-American Foundation Translation Prize 2022

Overview

Finalist, French-American Foundation Translation Prize In an age that prizes political and personal transparency, In Defense of Secrets champions the secret as what permits relation and ensures our humanity. Psychoanalyst and philosopher Anne Dufourmantelle drowned in 2017 in an attempt to rescue two children caught in the ocean. Her work lives on, though, in this provocative and necessary book. Through etymologies and case studies, personal history and incisive commentary on contemporary society, In Defense of Secrets returns us to the fundamental psychic scene of the secret. The secret, for Dufourmantelle, is not a code to be cracked or a firewall to be penetrated but a dynamic and powerful entity that permits relation and that ensures our humanity. Tracking the secret though art and literature, philosophy, psychoanalysis, and sociology, from the Inquisition to the present, Dufourmantelle's writing spirals around the question of the secret's value. In our age, when political and personal transparency seem to be prized above all-lives posted on the Internet, information leaked, whistles blown, taboos absent except with respect to the secret itself-In Defense of Secrets champions what remains hidden, private, veiled, hushed, just out of sight. The secret is on the side of nature, not science; organic growth, not technology; love's generosity, not knowledge's grasp. For Dufourmantelle, the secret is a powerful and dynamic thing: deadly if unheard or misused, perhaps, but equally the source of creativity and of ethics. An ethics of the secret, we can hear her say, means listening hard and sensitively, respecting the secret in its secret essence, unafraid of it and open to what it has to say.

Full Product Details

Author:   Anne Dufourmantelle ,  Lindsay Turner
Publisher:   Fordham University Press
Imprint:   Fordham University Press
ISBN:  

9780823289226


ISBN 10:   0823289222
Pages:   160
Publication Date:   05 January 2021
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us.

Table of Contents

Preamble | ix I. Memories of the Secret Origins | 3 In the Crypt | 6 Etymology | 8 When the Secret Appears | 10 Occult Force | 14 II. The Secret’s Passions Lifting the Veil | 19 The Unavowable | 22 A Treasure, a Poison | 25 Genesis | 27 Storia I | 29 III. Being or Having The Last Secret | 39 The Body au secret | 41 Eroticism | 44 Storia II | 47 Storia III | 53 IV. Transparency and Truth Violations | 59 Dissimulations | 63 Surveillances | 65 Adaptations | 67 Mirages | 69 Big Data, Hyperconnection, Speed: The Spiral | 72 Archives | 74 Secret Societies | 77 The Unifying Secret | 81 V. An Ethics of the Secret Panopticum: Bentham, Kant, Constant | 85 Inappropriable | 88 Creative Power | 90 The Secret of Dreams | 92 Sex and Prayer | 95 Secret Sideration | 97 Jealousies | 102 The Conspiracy Theory | 105 VI. Toward Mystery Secret Nature | 109 Veils | 111 Legacies | 114 Aside | 117 A Part of One’s Own | 123 Secret of the Prophetic Voice | 125 Sacrifice | 129 Mystery’s Share | 133 Notes | 139 Bibliography | 141

Reviews

In an epoch when transparency, openness, and candor are constantly enjoined on us, and in which the message 'Secrets Kill' is driven home by everything from twelve-step groups to Lifetime TV, Dufourmantelle shows the powers that secrecy continues to hold. This urgent book will open new perspectives on a world marked by the rise of Wikileaks, Big Data, and social media.--Michael Moon, Emory University


In an epoch when transparency, openness, and candor are constantly enjoined on us, and in which the message 'Secrets Kill' is driven home by everything from twelve-step groups to Lifetime TV, Dufourmantelle shows the powers that secrecy continues to hold. This urgent book will open new perspectives on a world marked by the rise of Wikileaks, Big Data, and social media.---Michael Moon, Emory University,


Author Information

Anne Dufourmantelle (Author) Anne Dufourmantelle (1964–2017), philosopher and psychoanalyst, taught at the European Graduate School and wrote monthly columns for the Paris newspaper Libération. Her books in English include In Praise of Risk; Power of Gentleness; Blind Date; and, with Jacques Derrida, Of Hospitality. Lindsay Turner (Translator) Lindsay Turner a poet and translator, is Assistant Professor of English and Literary Arts at the University of Denver. She has translated books by Stéphane Bouquet, Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Frédéric Neyrat, and Ryoko Sekiguchi.

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