Walter Benn Michaels is Professor of English at the University of Illinois Chicago. An influential scholar in the fields of literary theory and American literary history, Michaels is also a high-profile polemicist whose political writings have appeared in publications including The American Prospect and the London Review of Books. His most recent books are The Trouble with Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality and The Beauty of a Social Problem: Photography, Autonomy, Economy.

Adolph Reed Jr. is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. A veteran activist and a prolific analyst of the politics of race and class, his books include The Jesse Jackson Phenomenon: The Crisis of Purpose in Afro-American Politics, Stirrings in the Jug: Black Politics in the Post-Segregation Era and Class Notes: Posing as Politics and Other Thoughts on the American Scene. His essays have appeared in The Nation, Harpers and Jacobin, among other publications.