Description: Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) was a pioneering intellectual and proponent of existentialism who championed leftist causes in France and other countries. He wrote a number of books, including the highly influential Being and Nothingness, and was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1964, though he turned it down.
Brief description: David Detmer is Professor of Philosophy at Purdue University Northwest. His many books include Phenomenology Explained (2013), Sartre Explained (2008), Challenging Postmodernism (2003) and Freedom as a Value (1988), which received a Choice "Outstanding Academic Titles" award in philosophy. Detmer has also written articles and book chapters on such topics as vegetarianism, the Beatles, the death penalty, Woody Allen, U.S. foreign policy, and modern art. He is a past president of the North American Sartre Society, and for eleven years was executive editor of the journal Sartre Studies International.