Lieven De Cauter is a Belgian philosopher, art historian, writer and activist. He teaches philosophy of culture in the Department of Architecture of KU Leuven and RITCS (Royal Institute for Theatre, Cinema & Sound). He published over a dozen books: on contemporary art, experience and modernity, on Walter Benjamin and more recently on architecture, the city and politics. Besides this, he published poems, philosophical columns, statements, pamphlets and op-eds in newspapers and on online news websites. De Cauter was founder of the Distressed Jurists, who formed the basis of the first trial against the Vlaams Blok (the extreme right party in Belgium); he is the founder of the BRussells Tribunal, an people’s court against the invasion and occupation of Iraq(and subsequently) international activist network); was a founding member of the platform for free speech, which stood up against the excesses of the war against terror in Belgium; was a member of the action committee Barbara van Dyck, the Slow Science Movement, the Vooruitgroep and now the think team from Hart over Hard; recently he founded BACBI (Belgian academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel). His latest books in English: The Capsular Civilization. On the City in the Age of Fear (2004); Heterotopia and the City. Public space in a Postcivil Society (2008), co-edited with Michiel Dehaene, Art and Activism in the Age of Globalization, co-edited with Karel Vanhaesebrouck and Ruben De Roo (2011), and Entropic Empire. On the City of Man in the Age of Disaster (2012). He lives and works in Brussels.