The deaths of Michel Foucault in 1984, Pierre Bourdieu in 2002, Jacques Derrida in 2004, and now Paul Ricoeur on May 20,2005 virtually mark the passing of a generation of French intellectuals who have been enormously influential in numerous academic disciplines world-wide including anthropology.1 In fact, what is most noteworthy of the above four, and a testimony to their originality and intellects, is the difficulty of typifying their publications and research in terms of any one discipline. All of them have made recognized-albeit sometimes contentious-contributions to history, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, comparative religion, literary criticism and cultural studies to name just …