Jesudas M. Athyal is visiting researcher at the Boston University School of Theology, Boston, Massachusetts. He is also the president of the New England and Maritimes Region, American Academy of Religion (NEMAAR). He was previously associate professor of Dalit theology and social analysis at the Gurukul Lutheran Theological College, Chennai, India. His edited and published works include OUP’s Oxford Encyclopedia of South Asian Christianity, Volumes 1 and 2 (2011); CSS’s The Community We Seek: Perspectives on Mission (2003); and CCA’s Religion, State and Communalism: A Post-Ayodhya Reflection (1995). Athyal holds a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Poona.
Ruchi Agarwal is a senior lecturer of South Asian Studies at Mahidol University International College, where she teaches courses in Economics and Religious Experiences and Traditions. Her articles have appeared in journals such as Silpakorn University Journal of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts, and Interdisciplinary Journal of Social Sciences, Mahidol University.
George Amurao works as an editor for the official publication of Mahidol University International College in Thailand. A former journalist in the Philippines, he is doing graduate work on ASEAN studies in a public university in Bangkok. His research interests include mass media and Southeast Asian studies.
Raja Antoni is a PhD candidate in the School of Political Science and International Studies, the University of Queensland, Australia. He is doing research on religious peacebuilders in Southeast Asia with particular reference to the conflict in Maluku, Indonesia, and Mindanao, the Philippines. He is the former executive director of MAARIF Institute for Culture and Humanity, Jakarta.
S. Wesley Ariarajah is professor of ecumenical theology at the Drew University School of Theology, Madison, New Jersey. Before joining Drew, he served as the director of the Interfaith Dialogue program of the World Council of Churches for 12 years. He has published widely on ecumenism, interfaith relations and the theology of religions. His latest volume is Your God, My God, Our God—Rethinking Christian Theology for Religious Plurality (WCC Publications).
Achmad Zainal Arifin is a lecturer in the Sociology Department, Islamic State University of Sunan Kalijaga, where he teaches Sociology of Pesantren, Introduction to Sociology, and Classical Theory of Sociology. He also teaches the history of Islam at Pesantren al-Munawwir of Krapyak, Yogyakarta.
Julius Bautista is senior lecturer in the Department of Southeast Asian Studies, the National University of Singapore (NUS). He received his PhD in Southeast Asian studies (anthropology) from the Australian National University. He is a specialist in the religion of Asia, and is author of Figuring Catholicism: An Ethnohistory of the Santo Niño de Cebu (Ateneo, 2010), editor of The Spirit of Things: Materiality and Religious Diversity in Southeast Asia (Cornell SEP, 2012), and coeditor of Christianity in the State in Asia: Complicity and Conflict (Routledge, 2009).
Adrian Bird is affiliate professor of church history at Union Presbyterian Seminary, Charlotte, where he teaches courses in Christian Encounters with World Religions, Missiology, and Christian History. His articles have appeared in such journals as Religion and Society, Bangalore Theological Journal, and the online resource Justice Unbound. Several of his articles have appeared in books, including Duncan Forrester on Christian Ethics and Practical Theology and Contextualization: A Re-reading of M. M. Thomas, and he is the author of M. M. Thomas and Dalit Theology (2008).
Ben Bohane is an Australian writer and photojournalist who has covered Asian and Pacific island religion and conflict for 25 years. He is the author of The Black Islands—Spirit and War in Melanesia, and Song of the Islands about cult and kastom movements in the region.
Pascal Bourdeaux is assistant professor at the École pratique des hautes études (EPHE, Paris) and a statuary member of the research laboratory “Groupe Sociétés, Religions, Laïcités.” His research concerns the history of religious sciences in Southeast Asia, contemporary religiosities in southern Vietnam, and the riverine civilization of the Mekong Delta. He has edited the book Pluralisme religieux: une comparaison franco-vietnamienne (Brepols-EPHE, 2013). From 2012 to 2014, He was posted to Vietnam, where he was representative of the École française d’Extrême-Orient in Ho Chi Minh City.
Bénédicte Brac de la Perrière is the acting director of Centre Asie du Sud-est, CNRS-EHESS, Paris. An anthropologist specialist on Burma, she is the author of Les rituels de possession en Birmanie: du culte d’Etat aux cérémonies privées: Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations, ADPF, Paris, 1989. “An Overview on the Field of Religion in Burmese Studies,” in Power, Authority and Contested Hegemony in Burmese-Myanmar Religion, edited by Kawanami and Brac de la Perrière, eds. Asian Ethnology 68, no. 2 (2009): 185–210, Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture.
Peter J. Braeunlein is senior researcher in the DORISEA network at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology of the University of Goettingen (Germany). His articles have appeared in Asian Journal of Social Science, Journal of Religion in Europe, and Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences. He is the author of Passion/Pasyon: Rituale des Schmerzes im europaeischen und philippinischen Christentum (2010), and Zur Aktualitaet von Victor W. Turner: Einleitung in sein Werk (2012).
Bambang Budiwiranto holds a PhD in communication from the University of Queensland, Australia and Master of Arts (Asian Studies) from the Australian National University. He is a lecturer at Raden Intan State Institute for Islamic Studies of Lampung, Indonesia, where he teaches media, communication, and Islamic studies.
Matthew Copeland is chair of the Social Science Division at Mahidol University International College in Salaya, Thailand, where he teaches courses on East and Southeast Asian history.
Kirsten W. Endres is head of Research Group at the Department “Resilience and Transformation in Eurasia,” Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale. She has conducted research in northern Vietnam since 1996, focusing on social-cultural transformation processes that arise from the dynamic interplay between state, society, and market. She is author of Performing the Divine. Mediums, Markets, and Modernity in Urban Vietnam (2011).
Ahmad Fuad Fanani is research director at MAARIF Institute for Culture and Humanity and Lecturer at Faculty of Social and Political Sciences (FISIP) at State Islamic University (UIN) Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta, Indonesia. He graduated from the School of International Studies, Flinders University, Australia, and completed his undergraduate studies at the State Islamic University (UIN), Jakarta. His articles about Islam, politics, and global issues have been published widely in academic journals and the national mass media in Indonesia.
Marja-Leena Heikkilä-Horn is assistant professor at Mahidol University International College (MUIC) in Thailand, teaching Southeast Asian history and religions. She graduated with a PhD from Åbo Akademi University in Turku Finland in religious studies. She has published several books on Southeast Asian history in Finnish, and her dissertation, “Santi Asoke Buddhism and Thai State Response” was published by Åbo Akademi University Press. She has further published articles in English on religion, politics, and ethnicity in Thailand and Myanmar.
Jeremy Jammes serves as associate professor of social anthropology in the Institute of Asian Studies, Universiti Brunei Darussalam. He is the author of the book, Les oracles du Cao Dai. Etude d’un mouvement religieux vietnamien et de ses réseaux (Les Indes savantes, 2014) and has coedited a special issue on “Evangelical Protestantism and South-East Asian Societies” (Social Compass 60 [2013]), along other book chapters and articles (Aséanie, Moussons, Péninsule, Social Compass). Between 2010 and 2014, he served in Bangkok as Deputy Director of the Research Institute on Contemporary Southeast Asia (IRASEC), (co-)editing three regional outlooks on Southeast Asia geopolitics.
William J. Jones is a lecturer in International Relations at Mahidol University International College and a PhD candidate. His articles have been published in Semiotica, ASIEN, and Journal of Southeast Asian Affairs, among other journals. His research interests include comparative regionalism and politics of Southeast Asia.
Alexandra Kent is an associate professor of social anthropology at the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies in Copenhagen. Since 2002, she has been focusing on religion, security, and justice in Cambodia. Her articles have appeared in journals such as the Journal of Southeast Asia Studies, the Journal of Contemporary Religion, and numerous other journals. She is also the author of the book, Divinity and Diversity: A Hindu Revitalization Movement in Malaysia (NIAS Press Copenhagen, 2004), and coeditor of the anthology, People of Virtue: Reconfiguring Religion, Power and Moral Order in Cambodia Today (NIAS Press Copenhagen, 2008).
Stéphanie Khoury is a cultural anthropologist with a specialty in ethnomusicology. Her area of expertise is Southeast Asia, with a focus on Cambodia. She obtained her PhD at the University of Paris X-Nanterre and is now a researcher affiliated with both the Research Center for Ethnomusicology (CREM, CNRS) and the Southeast Asian Center (CASE, CNRS), located in Paris, as well as the secretary of the Société Française d'Ethnomusicologie (SFE, French Society for Ethnomusicology). In the past, she had served as lecturer in ethnomusicology at Boston College and Emmanuel College, Boston.
Sallie B. King is professor of philosophy and religion at James Madison University. She is the author of Buddha Nature (SUNY Press, 1991), Journey in Search of the Way: The Spiritual Autobiography of Satomi Myodo (SUNY Press, 1993), Being Benevolence: The Social Ethics of Engaged Buddhism (Hawaii, 2005), and Socially Engaged Buddhism (Hawaii, 2009). She is coeditor (with Christopher S. Queen) of Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist Liberation Movements in Asia (SUNY Press, 1996) and, with Paul O. Ingram, of The Sound of Liberating Truth: Buddhist-Christian Dialogues in Honor of Frederick J. Streng (Curzon Press, 1999).
Michael Kleinod is a PhD candidate at the Department of Southeast Asian Studies/Global Transformation, Institute for Asian and African Studies, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (Germany) and researcher in the research network Dynamics of Religion in Southeast Asia (DORISEA), funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research. His PhD thesis focuses on transformations of symbolic and material nature relations in Laos in the context of nature conservation and ecotourism.
Ninan Koshy is former director of the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs of the World Council of Churches, Geneva (1981–1991). He was a visiting fellow in the Human Rights Program of the Harvard Law School (1991–1992). He is the author of several books including Religious Freedom in a Changing World (WCC, Geneva 1992), Churches in a World of Nations (WCC, Geneva, 1994), and War on Terror Reordering the World (LeftWord, New Delhi, 2003). He is a specialist on foreign affairs, and his articles have appeared in Economic and Political Weekly, Foreign Policy in Focus, and Asia Times Online.
Septemmy E. Lakawa is the director of Graduate Studies of Jakarta Theological Seminary, where she teaches missiology and contextual theology. Her articles have appeared in International Review of Mission, Reformed World, and in various journals and book compilations in Indonesia.
Albertus Bagus Laksana, S.J., is on the faculty at Sanata Dharma University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia; he is also a visiting lecturer at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, California. He is the author of Muslim and Catholic Pilgrimage Practices: Explorations through Java (Ashgate, 2014). His previous publications (both in English and Indonesian) and research interests include various areas such as Christian-Muslim comparative theology, Asian theology, history of mission, religious pluralism, and encounters between religion and culture.
Julian CH Lee is a lecturer in Global Studies, School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University. His research has focused on civil society, gender, sexuality, and multiculturalism, with an area focus on Malaysia. He was an Economic and Social Research Council postdoctoral fellow at the University of Kent. He is the author of Islamization and Activism in Malaysia, and Policing Sexuality: Sex, Society, and the State. He is also the editor of The Malaysian Way of Life, and coeditor with Yeoh Seng Guan of Fringe Benefits and with Julian Hopkins of Thinking through Malaysia.
Caryn Lim is a PhD candidate at Monash University Malaysia in the School of Arts and Social Sciences. Her research interests include the study of ethnicity, identity politics, and urban anthropology. Her research is focused on studying the development of the funeral industry and its effects on the understanding and practice of death in urban Malaysia. She is also a contributor in the edited volume Thinking through Malaysia, in which she examines the experiences of “mixed-race” Malaysians in a racialized context.
Samuel Ngun Ling is professor of systematic theology and president of the Myanmar Institute of Theology since 2010. An ordained Baptist pastor, he is serving as the president of the Association for Theological Education in Myanmar (ATEM). He authored three books in English, including Communicating Christ in Myanmar: Issues, Interactions and Perspectives (2005) and Christianity through our Neighbors’ Eyes (2014), and contributed about 70 articles in English. He also wrote about 100 articles in the Chin dialect, which is spoken by one of the eight major ethnic groups in Myanmar.
Christian Oesterheld is a lecturer in Southeast Asian Studies and Anthropology at Mahidol University International College (MUIC), Thailand. He has done research on ethnic conflicts in Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo), the Catholic Church and inculturation in Borneo and Bali, Cambodian anti-Vietnamism, and the Khmer Rouge Tribunal. He is a contributor to the volume, Ancestors in Borneo Religions (NIAS Press 2012). He is finishing his PhD dissertation, “Genealogies of Just(ified) Violence in Borneo.”
Analiza Perez-Amurao is working on her PhD in multicultural studies at the Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia (RILCA) of Mahidol University in Thailand, where she is specializing in migration studies. She also holds a Postgraduate Diploma-TESOL from RELC-Singapore, an MA-ELLT from the Ateneo de Manila University, and an AB-BSE from the Philippine Normal University. She teaches in Mahidol University International College where she also serves as English Studies program coordinator.
Michael Nai-Chiu Poon is canon of Saint Andrew’s Cathedral, Singapore. Since 2005, he has chaired the documentation study group (DABOH) of the International Association for Mission Studies. He is a member of the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order, and an Anglican member of the Anglican Roman-Catholic International Commission. He was director and Asian Christianity research coordinator of the Centre for the Study of Christianity in Asia, Trinity Theological College, Singapore, from 2005 to 2014. He was MacKay Professor of World Christianity at Princeton Theological Seminary in 2011.
Alimatul Qibtiyah is a director of Center for Women’s Studies (since 2013) and lecturer at Dakwah and Communication Faculty (since 1997) in Islamic State University (UIN Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta, Indonesia). She finished her PhD at the University of Western Sydney. She is a speaker at various national and international seminars on women’s issues. She regularly writes in ESEAS (Austrian Journal of South-East Asian Studies, Sweden), Intersection (ANU-Australia), JIIs-Journal of Indonesian Islam (LSAS-PPs-Indonesia) and the Women’s Studies Journal in Pakistan.
Dana Rappoport obtained her PhD. in ethnomusicology at Paris X-Nanterre University and is a fellow ethnomusicologist at the Southeast Asian Center in Paris (CASE, CNRS-EHESS), Paris. Her research deals with Austronesian music of the Indonesian archipelago, studied by way of formal musicology, anthropology of religion, and social organization. She is the author of Songs from the Thrice-Blooded Land: Ritual Music of the Toraja (Sulawesi, Indonesia).
Saskia Louise Schäfer is a postdoctoral fellow in Modern Southeast Asian Studies at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and at the Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life at Columbia University. She completed her doctorate at the Graduate School of Muslim Cultures and Societies at Freie Universität Berlin and has taught at the Institute of Asian and African Studies at Humboldt Universität Berlin and at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. Her research interests include Islam and politics in Indonesia and Malaysia, discourse and media analysis, religious and political authority, secularism, public morality, and Islamic feminism.
David C. Scott is Professor Emeritus, Religion and Culture, United Theological College, Bangalore, India, where he taught courses on the religions and cultures of South and Southeast Asia. His articles have appeared in professional journals such as Religion and Society, Journal of Religious Studies, and Journal of Dharma. He has authored The Bhagavadgita and the Bible (1973) and Re-Visioning India’s Religious Traditions (1996), and edited Religious Traditions of India (1988). On the occasion of his Shashti Poorthi (an Indian celebration of one’s 60th birthday), Scott was felicitated by Indian Council of Philosophical Research for “Significant Contribution to the Study of Indian Religion.”
Eva Sevenig is a PhD student enrolled at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. Her PhD thesis deals with ritual dynamics and transcultural communication in Laos. She holds a seminar on the Ethnology of Laos at the Institute of Anthropology, University of Heidelberg. Some reflections on her fieldwork in northwestern Laos can be found at the home page of the network, Dynamics of Religion in Southeast Asia (DORISEA). A paper for the DORISEA Working Paper Series under the topic “Spatial Dynamics of Religion between Modulation and Conversion” is in process.
Peter Smith teaches courses in the History of Social Thought, the History of Psychology and Modern World History at Mahidol University International College (MUIC), a component part of Mahidol University, Thailand, where he is an associate professor. He has been a university administrator (the equivalent of academic dean) and for many years served as the chair of the Social Science Division. His PhD is in the sociology of religion and was completed at the University of Lancaster, England.
Ranjan Solomon served the YMCA in India from 1971 and then went on to serve in the Asia regional office and the global headquarters. He served the Ecumenical Coalition on Third World Tourism as Executive Director. He now serves as consultant of the Palestine-Israel Ecumenical Forum of the World Council of Churches. He consults for justice tourism networks in Palestine and India and has contributed articles to a variety of secular and ecumenical journals on tourism and Palestine. His book Challenge and Prospects of Tourism in Goa is a popular reading on issues of tourism in Goa.
Guido Sprenger is Professor of Social Anthropology at the Institute of Ethnology, University of Heidelberg. His research interests include exchange, kinship and social morphology, human-environment relations, animism, cultural identity, and gender and sexuality. His work has been published in his book, Die Männer, die den Geldbaum fällten (The Men Who Cut the Money Tree: Concepts of Exchange and Society among Rmeet of Takheung; Laos, 2006) and in numerous articles in edited volumes and journals, including the Journal of Asian Studies, Ethnology, and Anthropology Today. He is coeditor, with Kaj Arhem, of Animism in Southeast Asia.
Ahmad Khoirul Umam is a PhD candidate at the School of Political Science & International Studies, the University of Queensland, Australia. He is also a senior researcher at Paramadina Public Policy Institute (PPPI), Jakarta. His articles have appeared in journals such as International Journal of Indonesian Studies (2014), Faculty of Arts Monash University; Global & Strategis (2012), Airlangga University; and other Indonesian journals. He is also the author of Kiai and Corruption Culture in Indonesia (2006).