Étienne Balibar was a student of Louis Althusser, with whom he cowrote Reading Capital. The author of many books on moral and political philosophy, he is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the Universite de Paris-X Nanterrre and Anniversary Chair in the Humanities at Kingston University in London. He has served as Distinguished Professor of Humanities at the University of California, Irvine, and, more recently, as Visiting Professor at Columbia University.