Dale F. Eickelman
is Research Professor of Anthropology at Dartmouth College (USA) and Executive Director of the Dartmouth College-American University of Kuwait Program. His publications include The Middle East and Central Asia: An Anthropological Approach, 4th ed. (2002); New Media in the Muslim World: The Emerging Public Sphere, 2nd ed. (coedited with Jon W. Anderson, 2003); Muslim Politics (coauthored with James Piscatori, new ed., 2004); Knowledge and Power in Morocco (1985); and Russia’s Muslim Frontiers: New Directions in Cross-Cultural Analysis (1993). A former president of the Middle East Studies Association of North America, he is currently president of the Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies (talim).
Simeon Evstatiev
is Professor of Near Eastern History and Islamic Studies at Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski where he is Head of the Department of Arabic and Semitic Studies, Chair of the Center for the Study of Religions and Director of Graduate Studies, Middle East Studies. He was a 2013–2014 Shelby Cullom Davis Visiting Professor at Princeton University. As a Gerda Henkel Fellow (2016–2019), his work was focused on Salafism and he was a 2016–2017 Research Associate at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (zmo), Berlin. Evstatiev’s research has been supported by institutions as the European Commission (Horizon 2020), the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies at Princeton University, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the US National Science Foundation, the Central European University, the US Institute of Peace, the Bulgarian National Science Fund (BNSF), and the Centre for Advanced Study, Sofia. His studies include the books Christianity, Islam and Eastern Religions: Normative Text and Sociocultural Context (editor, 2011); Religion and Politics in the Arab World: Islam in Society (2012); and Salafism in the Middle East and the Boundaries of Faith (2018).
Kristen Ghodsee
is a Professor of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of seven books, including Muslim Lives in Eastern Europe: Gender, Ethnicity, and the Transformation of Islam in Postosocialist Bulgaria (2010); The Left Side of History: World War Two and the Unfulfilled Promise of Communism in Eastern Europe (2015); and Red Hangover: Legacies of 20th Century Communism (2017). Her articles have appeared in publications
Galina Evstatieva
holds a Ph.D. in Arabic Studies from Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski where she is currently an Associate Professor of Arabic and Islamic Culture at the Department of Arabic and Semitic Studies. She teaches under- and post-graduate courses on Anthropology of the Arab world and Islam, Arabic Culture, and Islamic Art. Her publications include the monographs Prosody and Metrics of Arabic Poetry (2011) and Islam and the Veiling of Women in the Arab World (2016).
Ilia Iliev
Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Ethnology and Head of the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology at Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski, Bulgaria. His main publications are in history of Bulgarian ethnology (Community Builders and Professional Strangers: Dialogues between Bulgarian and Foreign Anthropologists, 2nd ed. 2019), the social history of communism, and everyday life in post-socialist Bulgaria. His current research interests are in social history of ageing and old age in Bulgaria.
Daniela Kalkandjieva
holds a Ph.D. in History from the Central European University. She is affiliated with Sofia University St Kliment Ohridski through a series of research projects. Her principle monographs are The Russian Orthodox Church, 1917–1948: From Decline to Resurrection (2015) and The Bulgarian Orthodox Church and the State, 1944–1953 (1997). Her most recent studies include “Orthodox Churches in the Post-Communist Countries and the Separation between Religion and the State” (in Law and Religion in the Liberal State, ed. J.H. Bhuiyan and D. Jensen, 2020); “The Bulgarian Orthodox Church and the Refugee Crisis” (in Forced Migration and Human Security in the Eastern Orthodox World, ed. L.N. Leustean, 2019);
Plamen Makariev
holds a Ph.D. and a Dr. habil. Degree in Philosophy. As a Professor of Philosophy at Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski, he teaches courses in Political Philosophy and Philosophy of Religion. He is currently Chairman of the Expert Council on Religion at the Ministry of Education and Science of Bulgaria. His recent major publications include The Role of Religions in the Public Sphere: The Post-Secular Model of Jürgen Habermas and Beyond (co-editor, with Vensus A. George, 2015) and The Public Legitimacy of Minority Claims: A Central/Eastern European Perspective (2017).
Momchil Metodiev
holds a Ph.D. and a Dr. habil. Degree in Philosophy. He is Professor of Modern History in the New Bulgarian University and Editor in Chief of the Christianity and Culture Journal. His publications include the monographs Between Faith and Compromise. The Bulgarian Orthodox Church and the Communist State, 1944–1989 (2010) and Legitimacy Machine: The Place of the State Security within the Communist State (2008). He took part in the compilation of several documentary collections published by the Bulgarian Dossier Commission. Under several Bulgarian and international projects, he has also conducted research on the Communist past, including the Cold War Research Project at the Woodrow Wilson Institute in Washington, DC.
Daria Oreshina
holds a Ph.D. in Theological Studies from Universität Wien and a M.A. in Sociology from the National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow. She is a Research Fellow at the “Sociology of Religion” Research Laboratory at St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University of the Humanities, Moscow.
Ivan Zabaev
holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the National Research University “Higher School of Economics,” Moscow. He is a Professor at St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University of the Humanities, a faculty member at the Theology Department, and a Research Fellow at the “Sociology of Religion” Research Laboratory.
holds a Ph.D. from the University of Strasbourg and is currently an Associate Professor of Religion at the School of Theology of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki where she is also scientific coordinator of the newly introduced Undergraduate Program on Islamic Studies, as well as a visiting professor at the Schools of Political Science and Education. She studied at the Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies in Rome, the History Department of the Royal University of Amman, and has conducted research in Iran and Oman since 2006. In 2014, Ziaka was a lucis Fall Fellow at Leiden University’s Centre for the study of Islam and Society and a Visiting Research Fellow (Spring 2017) at the Middle East Institute, Columbia University. Her interests include early and medieval Islamic historiography and theology (kalām); Byzantine and post-Byzantine literature on Islam; religious historical narratives and the rearticulating of Muslim identities through religious discourse and political realities in the Middle East, especially the Shi‘a and Ibāḍī Islam; interreligious dialogue and religious education in religious and secular environments and institutions. Ziaka’s current research focuses on the philosophy of Ibāḍī kalām as well as on the political messianism in Shi‘i Islam. Her publications include La Recherche Grecque contemporaine et l’Islam (2002; 2004); Shi‘ism: Religious and Political Dimensions in the Middle East (2004); Between Polemics and Dialogue: Byzantine, Post-Byzantine and Contemporary Greek Literature on Islam (2010); Interreligious Dialogue: The Meeting of Christianity with Islam (2010); Early Islamic Apocalyptic and Messianic Movements: Mahdi the Eschatological Savior (2011); Οn Ibadism (2014); and Kalām and the Trends of Islamic Thought (2016).