Mumia Abu-Jamal
is an acclaimed writer, commentator, and journalist, whose politically motivated incarceration has generated worldwide attention and support. He is the author of ten books, written from within America’s carceral state. They include: Live from Death Row (Perennial, 1995), Death Blossoms: Reflections from a Prisoner of Conscience (The Plough Publishing House, 1997), We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black Panther Party (South End Press, 2004), Have Black Lives Ever Mattered? (City Lights Books, 2017), and Murder Incorporated: Empire, Genocide, Manifest Destiny. Book One: Dreaming of Empire (Prison Radio, 2018). For over twenty years he has delivered weekly radio commentaries, focusing on issues of race, racism, politics, economics, history, colonialism, war, and a variety of other topics. He continues to fight for his freedom.
Syed Farid Alatas
is Professor of Sociology at the National University of Singapore. He is also appointed to the Department of Malay Studies at NUS and headed that department from 2007 to 2013. He lectured at the University of Malaya in the Department of Southeast Asian Studies prior to joining NUS. In the early 1990s, he was a Research Associate at the Women and Human Resource Studies Unit, Science University of Malaysia. Prof. Alatas has authored numerous books and articles, including Ibn Khaldun (Oxford University Press, 2013); Applying Ibn Khaldun: The Recovery of a Lost Tradition in Sociology (Routledge, 2014), and (with Vineeta Sinha) Sociological Theory Beyond the Canon (Palgrave, 2017) and “The State of Feminist Theory in Malaysia” in Feminism: Malaysian Reflections and Experience (special issue of Kajian Malaysia: Journal of Malaysian Studies) Maznah Mohamad and Wong Soak Koon, eds. 12, 1–2 (1994): 25–46. His areas of interest are the sociology of Islam, social theory, religion and reform, intra- and inter-religious dialogue, and the study of Orientalism.
Rose M. Brewer
is The Morse Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor and past chairperson of the Department of African American & African Studies, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. She also is an affiliate faculty member in Sociology and Gender Women and Sexuality Studies. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in sociology from Indiana University and did post-doctoral studies at the University of Chicago. An activist scholar, Brewer publishes extensively on
Dustin J. Byrd
is a specialist in political philosophy, the Frankfurt School’s “Critical Theory of Religion,” and contemporary Islamic thought. He is an Associate Professor of Philosophy, Religion, and Arabic at Olivet College in Michigan, USA. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Islamic Perspective Journal, published by the London Academy of Iranian Studies. Along with dozens of articles, Dr. Byrd has published numerous books, including Unfashionable Objections to Islamophobic Cartoons: L’affaire Charlie Hebdo (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017), and Islam in a Post-Secular Society: Religion, Secularity, and the Antagonism of Recalcitrant Faith (Brill, 2017). The latter was translated into Arabic by Dr. Mohammad ‘Aafif and published by Mominoun Without Borders (Rabat, Morocco) in 2019. Along with Seyed Javad Miri, he has co-edited the following books: Malcolm X: From Political Eschatology to Religious Revolutionary (Brill, 2016), Ali Shariati and the Future of Social Theory: Religion, Revolution, and the Role of the Intellectual (Brill, 2018). He is currently researching the philosophical and religious origins of the West’s anti-liberal “Traditionalism.”
Sean Chabot
is a Professor in Sociology at Eastern Washington University. His intellectual work focuses on decolonizing the strategy and study of nonviolent resistance, entanglements of violence and nonviolence, subaltern movements in the global South, and transnational connections among different activist communities. Recent publications include the book Transnational Roots of the Civil Rights Movement: African American Explorations of the Gandhian Repertoire (Lexington Books, 2011), “The Violence of Nonviolence” in Societies without Borders 8 (2): 205–232 (2013, with Majid Sharifi), and “Decolonizing Civil Resistance”
Richard Curtis
holds a Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate University’s School of Religion. He has taught throughout the Seattle, Washington area. Currently Dr. Curtis is Professor of Philosophy and Editor for the Existential and Psychoanalytic Institute and Society (at the University of Montana) and Visiting Professor for the OLLI Program (at the University of Washington). He is currently working on a book developing a post-theistic Reform Jewish theology.
Nigel C. Gibson
is an activist and academic specializing in the work of the Algerian revolutionary Frantz Fanon. Gibson is author of Fanon: The Postcolonial Imagination (Polity Press, 2003), which won the 2009 Caribbean Philosophy Frantz Fanon Outstanding Book Award and was translated into Arabic in 2013, and Fanonian Practices in South Africa: From Steve Biko to Abahlali baseMjondolo (University of Kwa Zulu-Natal Press and Palgrave MacMillan, 2011). Gibson has also edited and co-edited collections of work on Adorno, Biko, Fanon, African Studies and Social Movements in South Africa. His latest work is Fanon: Psychiatry and Politics, co-authored with Roberto Beneduce (Rowman and Littlefield and University of Witwatersrand Press, 2017). He teaches at Emerson College, Boston, USA and is Honorary Professor in the Humanities Unit at the University currently known as Rhodes, South Africa.
Ali S. Harfouch
is a Lecturer at the American University of Beirut where he also received his Master of Arts (2017) in Political Studies. His publications include “Towards a Groundwork for the Metaphysics of an Islamic Decoloniality” (Researching Islam in the Global Village, Center for Educational Research and Training, 2017) and “The Illusion of Realism: What is the Future of Muslim Politics?” (Milestones: Commentary on the Islamic World, Milestones, 24 July 2017, www.milestonesjournal.net/). He specializes in contemporary Islamic thought, political theory and is a commentator on politics in the Muslim world.
Timothy Kerswell
is Assistant Professor of Government and Public Administration at the University of Macau, China. He is the author of Worker Cooperatives in India (Palgrave MacMillan, 2018). His research interests include the global division of labor, international class structure, labor politics in India and China, labor and migration
Seyed Javad Miri
holds a Ph.D. from the Institute of Humanities and Cultural Studies, and is Professor of sociology and history of religions at that Institute in Tehran. He has published more than fifty books and a hundred articles on various issues related to philosophy, religion, sociology, and social theory. His latest book is Reimagining Malcolm X: Street Thinker Versus Homo Academicus (University Press of America, 2016).
Pramod K. Nayar
teaches at the Department of English, University of Hyderabad, India. Among his newest books are Brand Postcolonial (de Gruyter, 2018), Bhopal’s Ecological Gothic (Lexington, 2017), The Extreme in Contemporary Culture (Rowman and Littlefield, 2017), Human Rights and Literature (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), among others. His Frantz Fanon appeared in the Routledge Critical Thinkers Series in 2013.
Elena Flores Ruíz
is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Global Studies at Michigan State University. She received her Ph.D. in Philosophy and M.A. in Social and Political Theory from the University of South Florida. Prior to joining MSU, Dr. Ruíz was a research fellow at Institut de Hautes études Internationales et du Développement in Geneva, Switzerland. Her primary areas of research are in political philosophy and feminisms of the global south. Her work examines the philosophical foundations of violence, structural oppression, and theories of harm (cultural, epistemic, linguistic) in the context of violence affecting women and marginalized populations in the Global South. Her work has appeared in Hypatia, Feminist Philosophy Quarterly, The Routledge International Handbook to Contemporary Social and Political Theory, as well as in edited collections and trade journals.
Majid Sharifi
is Associate Professor in Political Science Department and Director of International Affairs Program at Eastern Washington University. He is the author of Imagining Iran: the Tragedy of Subaltern Nationalism. His book breaks new grounds in connecting what he calls subaltern nationalism to the imperial nature of global governance. Sharifi’s current research explores the intersection
Mohamed Imran Mohamed Taib
is director of Centre for Interfaith Understanding (CIFU) in Singapore. He was formerly an associate research fellow at the Studies in Interreligious Relations in Plural Societies programme, S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), and was working for the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (Muis) in research and policy, the Muis Academy and the Harmony Centre. He was also founding member of Leftwrite Center, a dialogue initiative in Singapore on multicultural issues; and former board member of Centre for Contemporary Islamic Studies. He writes on issues of multiculturalism, interfaith relations and Muslim reform, published in dailies such as The Straits Times, Today, Channel NewsAsia and South China Morning Post. His co-edited books are Islam, Religion and Progress: Critical Perspectives (2006), Moral Vision and Social Critique: Selected Essays of Syed Hussein Alatas (2007) and Budi Kritik (2018). He was also chief editor of Malay socio-religious journal, Tafkir.
Esmaeil Zeiny
is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Malaysian and International Studies (IKMAS), National University of Malaysia (UKM). He has received his PhD in Postcolonial Literature in English from the National University of Malaysia. His research interests lie at the intersection of literary studies, political theory, and cultural studies. He has recently co-edited Seen and Unseen: Visual Cultures of Imperialism (Brill, 2018, with Sanaz Fotouhi) and Reconstructing Historical Memories (UKM Press, 2018, with Richard Mason).