Jonathan Lear is the Roman Family Director of the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society at the University of Chicago, USA. He is also the John U. Nef Distinguished Service Professor in the Committee on Social Thought and the Department of Philosophy. He is a trained psychoanalyst, and the author of several acclaimed books on philosophy and psychoanalysis, including Aristotle: The Desire to Understand; Love and Its Place in Nature; Open Minded; Happiness, Death and the Remainder of Life and Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation. His most recent book is A Case for Irony (2011). He is a recipient of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Distinguished Achievement Award.