Eva Illouz was born in Fes, Morocco, and moved to France at the age of ten. She received a BA in sociology, communication and literature in Paris, an MA in literature in Paris X Nanterre, an MA in communication from the Hebrew University, and received her PhD in communications and cultural studies at the Annenberg School for Communication of the University of Pennsylvania in 1991. Her mentor was Professor Larry Gross, currently the head of the Annenberg School of Communications at USC. She has served as a visiting professor at Northwestern University, Princeton University, the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris (École des hautes études en sciences sociales ) and as a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, Berlin (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin). In 2006, Illouz joined the Center for the Study of Rationality, then headed by Professor Edna Ullman-Margalit. Her book Consuming the Romantic Utopia won the Honorable Mention for the Best Book Award at the American Sociological Association, 2000 (emotions section). Her book Oprah Winfrey and the Glamour of Misery won the Best Book Award, American Sociological Association, 2005 Culture Section. She delivered the 2004 Adorno lectures at the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt. In 2009, she was chosen by the German leading newspaper Die Zeit as one of the 12 thinkers most likely to “change the thought of tomorrow.” Her work has been translated in 15 languages.