Prof. Fredric Jameson, born in 1934, is the director of the Center for Critical Theory at Duke University in Durham and teaches Comparative Literature and Romance Studies. He is a recipient of the MLA Lowell Prize. Jean-Paul Sartre was born on June 21, 1905, in Paris. With his philosophical masterpiece 'Being and Nothingness,' published in 1943, he became the foremost representative of existentialism and one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century. His plays, novels, short stories, and essays made him world-famous. Through his unconditional humanitarian commitment, particularly during the French-Algerian War and the American Vietnam War, he became a kind of global conscience. In 1964, he declined the Nobel Prize in Literature. He died on April 15, 1980, in Paris.