This image is the cover for the book In Defense of Secrets

In Defense of Secrets

“This urgent book” by the renowned French philosopher “will open new perspectives on a world marked by the rise of Wikileaks, Big Data, and social media” (Michael Moon, Emory University).

In an age that prizes political and personal transparency, psychoanalyst and philosopher Anne Dufourmantelle champions the value of what remains hidden, private, veiled, or just out of sight. For Dufourmantelle, the secret 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. Through etymologies and case studies, personal history and incisive social commentary, In Defense of Secretsreturns us to this foundational phenomenon.

Dufourmantelle tracks the secret from the Inquisition to the present, illuminating its power and importance through art and literature, philosophy, psychoanalysis, and sociology. For her, the secret is on the side of nature, not science; organic growth, not technology; love’s generosity, not knowledge’s grasp. An ethics of the secret, she tells us, means listening sensitively, respecting the secret in its essence, unafraid of it and open to what it has to say.

Finalist, French-American Foundation Translation Prize

Anne Dufourmantelle

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, 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, Anne Dufourmantelle, Frédéric Neyrat, and Ryoko Sekiguchi.

Fordham University Press