Bassanio’s bailout: A brief history of risk, Shakespeare to Wall Street

Authors

  • Richard Halpern New York University

Keywords:

William Shakespeare, risk, finance, Alexandre Kojève, Ulrich Beck, G.F.W. Hegel

Abstract

Shakespeare’s most searching anatomy of risk, The Merchant of Venice depicts the wagering not only of money but of love and life itself. This paper places Merchant in a long history that traces the concept of risk from classical theatre to medieval scholasticism to modern sociology. Over the course of this history, the moral and economic dimensions of risk become increasingly fugitive and unmappable. Shakespeare’s play illustrates this process in miniature, and in so doing casts light on our contemporary “risk society,” including the financial meltdown of 2008.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Downloads

Published

2021-12-16

Issue

Vol. 24 (2014)

Section

Articles

License

The copyright holder of the published contributions is SEDERI.

The hardcopy and an open-access version of the journal will be published simultaneously. The issues will be available online in the SEDERI website (http://www.sederi.org/yearbook/) and other repositories that have signed an agreement with SEDERI.

The authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

a) SEDERI retains copyright of the essay.
b) If the author wishes to republish or rewrite the essay for another journal, or include the essay published in SEDERI in their personal repositories, or in any other way, they should contact the editors to obtain permission to do so. This will entail citing SEDERI as the original source and sending the editors a copy of the new version, or the link to the website, in case of online publishing.

The author(s) hereby warrant(s) that:

a) The essay submitted for publication is an original creation and does not infringe any copyright or property right of another journal, author or publisher.

b) The essay submitted for publication has not been previously published, whole or in part, and is not being considered for publication elsewhere.

c) Written permission has been obtained for any material from other sources included in the essay submitted for publication.