Notes on Contributors
Anna Akasoy
is Professor of Islamic Intellectual History at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her areas of research include Muslim-Buddhist contacts, the history of falconry and veterinary medicine in the Middle East, and Islamic philosophy.
Friederike Assandri
Ph.D. (2002), University of Heidelberg, is a researcher at the University of Leipzig. Her research focuses on the interaction of Daoism and Buddhism in early medieval China. She has published widely in the field, including The Daode jing Commentary of Cheng Xuanying. Daoism, Buddhism and the Laozi in Tang Dynasty (OUP, 2021).
Daniel Beben
Ph.D. (2015), Indiana University, is Associate Professor of History and Religious Studies at Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan. He is the co-author with Daryoush Mohammad Poor of The First Aga Khan: Memoirs of the 46th Ismaili Imam (I.B. Tauris and the Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2018), and co-editor with Jo-Ann Gross of Genealogical History in the Persianate World (Bloomsbury, 2025).
Beate Ego
is Senior Professor of Exegesis and Theology of the Old Testament at the Department of Protestant Theology at Ruhr University Bochum. Her research focuses on early Jewish literature and its theology and anthropology, with an emphasis on Deuterocanonical literature.
Kathy Ehrensperger
Research Fellow, Faculty of Theology, University of Basel; former Research Professor for New Testament in Jewish Perspective, Abraham Geiger Kolleg, University of Potsdam. She is the Executive Editor of the Encyclopedia of Jewish-Christian Relations and author of numerous publications, among these Paul at the Crossroads of Cultures: Theologizing in the Space-Between.
Georgios T. Halkias
is Professor and Director of the Centre of Buddhist Studies at the University of Hong Kong. He has published several monographs and articles on Tibetan Buddhism and comparative religions, and he is co-editor in chief of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Buddhism.
Jan Heilmann
Dr. theol. (2013), Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, is Professor of Biblical Theology (New Testament Studies) at TU Dresden. His broad research interests cover meals, writing and reading in antiquity, the history of the NT canon as well as textual criticism and manuscript culture. His most important monograph is Lesen in Antike und frühem Christentum (Narr Francke Attempto, 2021).
Jens Kreinath
Ph.D. (2006), University of Heidelberg, is Associate Professor of Anthropology of Religion at Wichita State University. He has conducted extensive fieldwork on Zoroastrian, Alevi, Christian, and Muslim ritual practices and interreligious relations in Turkey. His recent research focuses on the Antakya Choir of Civilizations and the dynamics of religious coexistence in Hatay. He is co-investigator in the international project Reassembling Democracy: Ritual as Cultural Resource, funded by the Norwegian Research Council.
Hildegard Piegeler
Dr. phil. (1958), FU Berlin, Lecturer for International Visiting Students. She has studied German Literature, Philosophy and Scientific Studies of Religions and has published a.o. the monograph Tarot. Bilderwelten der Esoterik (2010).
Philipp Reichling
Ph.D. (Art History), University of Bonn, is Lecturer in Theology and Christian Art at Ruhr University Bochum and Guest Lecturer at Saint Victor’s Major Seminary, Tamale, Ghana. A Norbertine priest of Hamborn Abbey, he also serves as Director of the Catholic Broadcasting Office NRW and Diocesan Media Officer in the Diocese of Essen. His research focuses on mysticism and modern art, and he has published on the contemplative reception of art in theology.
Henrik H. Sørensen
Ph.D. (1988), is an independent scholar specializing in East and Central Asian Buddhism, especially that of China and Korea, as well as its religious art and material culture broadly defined. The focus of much of his research is on Esoteric Buddhism (mijiao). He has published many articles, book-length studies and translations. He was a founding member of the Seminar for Buddhist Studies, and editor of its journal Studies in Central and East Asian Buddhism (1988–1999). He is also the co-editor for the Brill HdO volume on Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia. He was a fellow at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg (CERES) from 2011–2012, and later participated in the ERC funded BuddhistRoad Project at CERES from 2017–2023.
Knut Martin Stünkel
Ph.D. (2002), University of Bielefeld, is Associate Professor of Literary Studies and Philosophy of Religion at Ruhr University Bochum. He has published several monographs and articles on intellectual history, including Key Concepts in the Study of Religion in Contact (DHR 15), 2025.
Peter Wick
is Professor of New Testament Studies at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany. 2023 he has published his latest monograph Das Geheimnis des Evangeliums. Mysterien bei Paulus, Markus, Johannes und in der Apostelgeschichte als Testfall interkultureller Inklusions- und Demarkationsprozesse (Brill).