Piotr Sztompka is a Full Professor of Sociology at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, and a regular Visiting Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has also taught as Visiting Professor at Columbia University, the University of Michigan, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Rome, La Sapienza. He has published many books, including: System and Function (1974), Sociological Dilemmas (1979), Rethinking Progress with J. Alexander (1990) and Society in Action (1991).