The surrealistic setting, 1916-38
Henri Bergson, philosopher (1859-1941)
Jean-Paul Sartre, existentialist (1905-80)
Albert Camus, absurdist and novelist (1913-60)
E.M. Cioran, nihilist and ecstatic (1911-95)
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, priest and paleontologist (1881-1955)
Ferdinand de Saussure, linguist (1857-1913)
Claude Lévi-Strauss, anthropologist (1908-)
Jacques Lacan, psychoanalyst (1901-81)
Roland Barthes, literary critic (1915-80) : structuralist views, 1950s-67
Roland Barthes, literary critic (1915-80) : poststructuralist views, 1968-80
Jacques Derrida, linguist and literary theorist (1930-)
Michel Foucault, historian and social theorist (1926-84)
Jean-François Lyotard, social theoretician and activist (1924-98)
Luce Irigaray, feminist and psycholinguist (1930-)
Gilles Deleuze, philosopher and social psychologist (1925-95)
Jean Baudrillard, sociologist (1929-)
Conclusion : freedom, language, and existence.