Variations on Risk: for an archaeology of aesthetic-literary imagery from the 20th century to the present day in French-language literature

This project, funded by the MUR — Ministry of University and Research — explores the centrality and complexity of the concept of risk in French-language literature from the early 20th century to the present day. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, the project highlights how risk — typically studied in the exact and social sciences — takes on, in literary practices, the meaning of an uncertainty intrinsic to any creative endeavor. No longer merely the anticipation of a threat, but also an opportunity for reflection and experimentation, the notion of risk allows us to question our relationship with the future, tracing new forms of thought, action, and care for the world.

Through a dialogue between literary texts and risk theories, the research — conducted by the Universities of Turin, Bergamo, and Naples Federico II — aims to reveal how creative practices confront failure as a possibility and redefine models of rationality that go beyond the limits of a deterministic and predictable vision of reality.

This digital platform presents interactive maps that connect conceptual nodes and literary representations of risk. Its goal is to offer an overview of how literature has developed and dramatized this theme, both reflecting and influencing the collective imagination.