Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002) held the Chair of Sociology at the Collège de France, where he directed the Center for European Sociology, the journal Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, and the publishing house Raisons d'agir Editions until his death in 2002. He was one of the most influential social scientists of the twentieth century as well as a leading public intellectual involved in the global mobilization against neoliberalism. He authored numerous classics of sociology and anthropology. Among them are Reproduction in Education, Society, and Culture, Outline of a Theory of Practice, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, Homo Academicus, The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Artistic Field, and Pascalian Meditations.

Priscilla Parkhurst Ferguson is a professor of sociology at Columbia University. Her previous books include Paris as Revolution and Literary France.