Catherine Porter is Visiting Professor in the Society for the Humanities at Cornell University, USA, and Professor of French Emerita at the State University of New York at Cortland, where she chaired the Department of International Communications and Culture from 1985–91 and from 1997–2001. She has translated some three dozen books and numerous essays from the French, including recent renderings of Avital Ronell’s Fighting Theory, The Animal Side by Jean-Christophe Bailly, and Luc Boltanski’s The Foetal Condition. Prof Porter was the 2009 President of the Modern Languages Association.