Lieven De Cauter is a Belgian philosopher, art historian, writer and activist. He teaches philosophy of culture in the Department and Faculty of Architecture of KULeuven and RITS, school of arts. He published some 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 opinion pieces in newspapers and on online. 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.