Gianni Vattimo is emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of Turin and a member of the European Parliament. His books with Columbia University Press are Not Being God, The Future of Religion (with Richard Rorty), Dialogue with Nietzsche, and Nihilism and Emancipation. His forthcoming book, coauthored with Santiago Zabala, is Hermeneutic Communism. René Girard held the position of Andrew B. Hammond Professor of French Language, Literature, and Civilization at Stanford University until his retirement in 1995. He is the cofounder of the Colloquium on Violence and Religion, which meets annually to discuss issues in mimetic theory, scapegoating, violence, and religion, and his books include Violence and the Sacred, Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, and A Theatre of Envy. In 2005, Girard was elected to L'Académie française, the highest tribute for a French intellectual.