"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
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 book on 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.
In our age, when political and personal transparency seems to be prized above all-lives posted on the internet, information leaked, whistles blown-In Defense of Secrets champions what remains hidden, private, veiled, hushed, just out of sight.
The secret may be deadly if unheard or misused, but Dufourmantelle shows how it is equally the source of creativity and of ethics. An ethics of the secret, we can hear her to say, means listening hard and sensitively, respecting the secret in its secret essence, unafraid of what it has to say.
Anne Dufourmantelle, taught at the European Graduate School. Her books include In Praise of Risk; Power of Gentleness; Blind Date; and, with Jacques Derrida, Of Hospitality.
Lindsay Turner is Assistant Professor of English and Literary Arts at the University of Denver.

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

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.