Figures of Chance II - Chance in Theory and Practice

Figures of Chance II: Chance in Theory and Practice proposes a multidisciplinary analysis of cultural phenomena related to notions of chance and contingency. Alongside its transhistorical companion volume (Figures of Chance I), it considers how the projective and predictive capacity of societies is shaped by representations and cultural models of a reality that is understood, by varying degrees, to be contingent, unpredictable, or chaotic. This volume reevaluates the role played by figurative representations of chance in contemporary discourses about chance and contingency. Written by seven interdisciplinary teams, and encompassing philosophy, literature, history of science, sociology, mathematics, cognitive science, information science, and art history, this text puts scientific conceptions of chance into dialogue with their contemporary literary and artistic representations. It thus brings out the central role played by art in the human perception of chance, and in our methods for projecting the future, in order to better understand contemporary human attitudes in the face of risk.
The Introduction and Chapter One of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

List of contents

Introduction
By Anne Duprat, with Alison James
Chapter 1. Chance, causality, temporality
Edited by Anne Duprat
With Mark Currie, Elie During and Sophie Vlacos
With a counterpoint by Philippe Carrard
Chapter 2. Chance and complexity in narrative
Edited by John Pier
With Demian Battaglia, Marina Grishakova, Maria Poulaki and Richard Walsh
Chapter 3. Chance in philosophy and science: Beyond ontologies and theologies
Edited by Divya Dwivedi
With Michel Bitbol, Zeynep Direk and Maël Montévil
Chapter 4. Doing the right thing: Moral luck and ethical challenges
Edited by Enrica Zanin
With Barbara Carnevali, Anthony Mangeon and Matthias Roick
With a counterpoint by Christian Walter
Chapter 5. Creativity and contingency: Provoking chance across the arts
Edited by Karin Kukkonen
With Ros Ballaster, Guillaume Dumas, Henry Keazor, Juliane Vogel and Michael Wheeler
Chapter 6. Chance in games
Olivier Caïra
With a counterpoint by Sophie Chevalier
Chapter 7. Chance and language
Edited by Valentina Bisconti
With Francesco La Mantia and Raffaele Simone

About the author

Anne Duprat is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Picardy Jules Verne and a member of the Institut Universitaire de France. As Principal Investigator on the ALEA project supported by the French National Research Agency (ANR), she edited and coordinated the two volumes of Figures of Chance.
Alison James is Professor of French Literature and Chair of the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Chicago. She co-edited the second volume of Figures of Chance and helped prepare the English version of the first volume.

Product details

• Assisted by: Duprat Anne (Editor), Alison James (Editor)
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Release: 26.12.2025
• EAN: 9781032358666
• ISBN: 978-1-032-35866-6
• No. of pages: 392
• Illustrations: schwarz-weiss Illustrationen, Raster,schwarz-weiss, Zeichnungen, schwarz-weiss, Tabellen, schwarz-weiss
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Contemporary history (1945 to 1989); Chance, Media Studies, Postwar 20th century history, from c 1945 to c 2000, Cultural Studies, LITERARY CRITICISM / General, Literary studies: from c 1900 -, Literary theory, Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000, History and Archaeology