Repetition, Recurrence, Returns

This highly recommended book identifies nothing less than a new riddle of the Sphinx: What animal embraces mimesis; rejects repetition in the quest for freedom; and grasps for reproducibility in the face of unpredictability? The authors offer unexpected insights into this enigma and, in the process, open the human condition to sobering inspection. -- Charles Stewart, University College London
Mental innovation is usually associated with the ability to forget the past. In order to create new thoughts or new events, it seems necessary to free oneself from the past and to make a kind of tabula rasa. This book demonstrates the contrary. Because our imagination is necessarily dialogic and requests the best possible answer from the world or from the other, it needs to be enriched permanently by the past. This enrichment is conditioning our creativity, our ability to find the new thoughts or new events that fulfill ourselves as much as we desire. Our creations are always re-harmonizing the best of our past with our drive to the future and to the accomplishment of ourselves. Reading Repetition, Recurrences, Returns will teach us how to insert these memory games in our conversation with ourselves and with our human fellows. It will help you to reinforce your creative power. -- Jacques Poulain, Université Paris 8