Jean-Michel Rabaté is Vartan Gregorian Professor in the Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania, USA. Co-founder and curator of the Slought Foundation, which supports initiatives at the nexus of cultural and socio-political change, he has authored and edited more than thirty volumes on modernism, psychoanalysis, contemporary art, and philosophy. His recent books include 1913: The Cradle of Modernism (2007), The Ethic of the Lie (2008) and Étant Donnés: 1) L’Art, 2) Le Crime (2010). The current president of the Samuel Beckett Society, he is working on books on psychoanalysis and literature, the future of literary theory and Samuel Beckett.