States of Mind presents a series of dialogues with twenty-two of the world's leading political, philosophical, and literary thinkers. Over the past decade, Richard Kearney has interviewed a range of notable figures, including Julia Kristeva, Jacques Derrida, George Steiner, Charles Taylor, Herbert Marcuse, Seamus Heaney, Jorge Luis Borges, Noam Chomsky, Miroslav Holub, Jean-Franois Lyotard, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Umberto Eco, Neal Ascherson, Emmanuel Levinas, Marina Warner, Paul Ricoeur, Edward Said, Stanilas Breton, Martha Nussbaum, and Vaclav Havel. Each of these critics has helped to shape the most pressing debates of the century in areas such as ethics, art, language, psychology national and international identity, and religion. This searching and lively exchange of ideas, reflecting a multitude of provocative and exciting visions, acts as an introduction to the work of each thinker. The volume addresses issues on a global scale and makes some of the most pioneering and influential thinkers of our time available for the first time to a general readership.