About the Editors and Contributors xiii J
She has published articles on classical and
modern Persian literature. She is the author of
The Love Poems of Shamlu and The Unveiling of
Secrets Kashf al-Asrar: The Visionary Autobiog-
raphy of Ruzbihan Baqli.
David Reeves is a Ph.D. candidate in history at
the University of California, Santa Barbara. He
specializes in the history of Islam in the Soviet
Union, with a focus on Azerbaijan during the
Stalin era. He has been awarded a Fulbright-
Hayes Fellowship, a University of California,
Santa Barbara, Department of History Regent’s
Dissertation Fellowship, and a Social Science
Research Council Pre-Dissertation Fellowship,
among others, to conduct his research.
Mehnaz Sahibzada earned an M.A. in religious
studies from the University of California,
Santa Barbara, and an M.A. in Middle Eastern
studies from the University of Texas at Austin.
Her areas of interest include Islam in America
and Asian American literature. She teaches
English at Moorpark High School in Southern
California.
Judy Saltzman is emeritus professor of religious
studies at California Polytechnic University
in San Luis Obispo. Her Ph.D. is from the
University of California, Santa Barbara. She
specializes in the history of Asian religions,
Indian philosophy, Vedanta, and modern Ger-
man philosophy.
Kerry San Chirico is a doctoral candidate in the
Department of Religious Studies at the Univer-
sity of California, Santa Barbara. He specializes
in the religions of South Asia, with a focus on
Hindu-Christian relations.
Leslie Sargent is a Ph.D. candidate in history at
the University of California, Santa Barbara. She
specializes in the history of the Russian Empire
and the Caucasus in the late 19th and early
20th centuries.
Bhaskar Sarkar is associate professor of film and
media studies at the University of California,
Santa Barbara. His Ph.D. is from the Univer-
sity of California, Los Angeles. He specializes
in postcolonial media theory, Asian cinemas,
and Marxist cultural theory. He is the author
of Mourning in the Nation: Indian Cinema in the
Wake of Partition (forthcoming, 2008) and has
published essays on philosophies of visuality
and Indian and Chinese popular cinemas in
anthologies and journals such as Quarterly
Review of Film and Video, Rethinking History:
Theory and Practice, and New Review of Film
and Television Studies.
Megan Adamson Sijapati is assistant professor of
religion at Gettysburg College. She received her
Ph.D. in religious studies from the University
of California, Santa Barbara. Her specialization
is in the religions of South Asia, with a focus on
contemporary Islam.
Mark Soileau received a Ph.D. in religious stud-
ies, with a focus on Islam, from the University
of California, Santa Barbara. He is currently
an assistant professor of religious studies at
Albion College in Michigan.
Varun Soni is currently a doctoral candidate in the
Department of Religious Studies at the Univer-
sity of Cape Town, South Africa. He received
a J.D. from the University of California, Santa
Barbara, School of Law, an M.T.S. from Har-
vard Divinity School, and an M.A. from the
University of California, Santa Barbara.
Eric Staples received a Ph.D. in history from the
University of California, Santa Barbara. He spe-
cializes in medieval and early modern Middle
Eastern history, and focuses on the social history
of early modern Morocco, the maritime history
of the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean regions,
and underwater archaeology. He is currently
involved in a project to build a replica of a medi-
eval Indian Ocean vessel under the auspices of
the governments of Oman and Singapore.
Nancy L. Stockdale is assistant professor of his-
tory at the University of Northern Texas.
She received her Ph.D. from the University
of California, Santa Barbara. Her specializa-
tion is modern Middle Eastern history, with a
focus on the history of Palestine, imperialism,