Notes on Contributors
Mariapaola Bergomi
is a Research Associate at the University of Milan, after spending a year as a Postdoctoral Research Affiliate at Christ’s College, Cambridge. Her area of expertise is the history of ancient philosophy. She has published on Plato’s Timaeus, on Plato’s Cratylus, on Plotinus and late antique philosophy. She is currently working on a monograph on the topic of Neoplatonism in the Byzantine Empire, and a study on the topic of etymologies in ancient philosophy.
Moses O. Biney
is an Assistant Professor of Religion and Society, Research Director for the Center for the Study and Practice of Urban Religion at New York Theological Seminary, and an ordained Presbyterian Minister currently serving as Pastor for Bethel Presbyterian Reformed Church, Brooklyn, N.Y. Biney’s research and teaching interests include the religions of Africa and the African Diaspora, religion and transnationalism, religion and culture, urban Ministry and congregational studies. He is the author of From Africa to America: Religion and Adaptation among Ghanaian Immigrants in New York.
Christopher Braddock
is an artist, writer and Professor of Visual Arts at Auckland University of Technology New Zealand. He co-leads the Ph.D. and M.Phil. programs and the Art & Performance Research Group. He is author of Performing Contagious Bodies: Ritual Participation in Contemporary Art and editor of Animism in Art and Performance. His performance and sculpture was included in Material Traces: Time and the Gesture in Contemporary Art curated by Amelia Jones in Montréal.
Drew Chastain
is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Loyola University, New Orleans. His research interests include philosophy of religion and spirituality, and Anglo-American philosophy of meaning in life. Forthcoming publications include “Gifts Without Givers: Secular Spirituality and Metaphorical Cognition.”
Kerem Eksen
is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Istanbul Technical University. His recent work focuses on the later, ethical phase of Michel Foucault’s thought and on the works of the French historian of philosophy Pierre Hadot. He is the translator (into Turkish)
Nikolay Milkov
teaches philosophy at the University of Paderborn, Germany. He is the author of the books Kaleidoscopic Mind: An Essay in Post-Wittgensteinian Philosophy; Varieties of Understanding: English Philosophy After 1898; and A Hundred Years of English Philosophy. He also edited (with Volker Peckhaus) Hans Reichenbach’s Ziele und Wege der heutigen Naturphilosophie; The Berlin Group and the Philosophy of Logical Empiricism; Die Berliner Gruppe; and Hermann Lotze’s “Microcosm.”
Roderick Nicholls
is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Cape Breton University, Nova Scotia, Canada. He has published articles and book chapters that explore issues emerging from the Enlightenment critique of religion, focusing on philosophers such as Voltaire, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Camus. Experiences as a life-long gardener and practitioner of the theater – he has directed numerous plays and published in theater aesthetics – have helped shape his understanding of non-religious spiritual practices.
Jerry S. Piven
has taught at NYU, New School University, and Case Western Reserve University, where his courses have focused on the philosophy of religion, existentialism, psychoanalysis, and metaphysics. The central focus of his research is on the psychology and philosophy of religion, belief systems, the dynamics of dogma, faith, violence, and apocalyptic eschatologies. He is the editor of The Psychology of Death in Fantasy and History, and Terrorism, Jihad, and Sacred Vengeance; author of Death and Delusion, The Madness and Perversion of Yukio Mishima, and Nihon No Kyouki; and has recently completed Slaughtering Death: On the Psychoanalysis of Terror, Religion and Violence.
Heather Salazar
is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Western New England University where she teaches East-West philosophy, ethics, and philosophy of mind. She not only publishes academic papers on yoga, ethics and philosophy of mind, she has been a practicing yogi for nearly 20 years and has been teaching yoga and meditation for since 2007. Her yoga journey began in 1998 with Sivananda and Iyengar’s methods. She then practiced a variety of eclectic styles in Santa Barbara, California and studied Patañjali and Ashtanga yoga as her
Eric Steinhart
grew up on a farm in Pennsylvania. He earned a PhD in Philosophy from SUNY at Stony Brook and BSc in Computer Science from the Pennsylvania State University. Many of his algorithms have been patented. He teaches at William Paterson University and is a regular visitor at Dartmouth College. He uses new digital ideas to solve old philosophical problems. He is especially interested in new and emerging religions and spiritualities. He loves New England and the American West, and enjoys hiking, biking, chess and photography.
Richard White
is a Professor of Philosophy at Creighton University in Omaha. He specializes in the history of philosophy and literature, and the continental philosophical tradition. His books include: Nietzsche and the Problem of Sovereignty; Love’s Philosophy, Radical Virtues: Moral Wisdom and the Ethics of Contemporary Life; and The Heart of Wisdom: a Philosophy of Spiritual Life. Most recently, he published a spiritual-philosophical “self-help” book: The Spiritual Guide: Four Steps on the Path of Enlightenment.
Mark Wynn
is Professor of Philosophy and Religion at the University of Leeds. His publications include Renewing the Senses: A Study of the Philosophy and Theology of the Spiritual Life; Faith and Place: An Essay in Embodied Religious Epistemology; and Emotional Experience and Religious Understanding: Integrating Perception, Conception and Feeling.
Eric Yang
is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Santa Clara University. He has published articles and book chapters in metaphysics, philosophy of mind, epistemology and philosophy of religion.