Panelists

Annie Blakeney-Glazer

I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Religious Studies at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I am working on a dissertation on sports ministry organizations in America. I am particularly interested in how the dynamics of late capitalism have affected American evangelical identity. I am using sport to explore this question because, I argue, the power dynamics and capitalist impulses that drive sporting culture have a strong parallel with contemporary evangelical identity politics. My dissertation focuses on the athletic body as a site of power and examines how these contested bodies are implicated in evangelical projects.

Laura Forlano

Laura Forlano is a Ph.D. student in Communications at Columbia University. She is researching the socio-economic implications of the use of mobile and wireless technology. Her dissertation is an ethnographic study of mobile work practices focusing on three interrelated phenomena – the growth of the freelance and entrepreneurial work and the transformation of organizations; the widespread use of mobile and wireless technologies; and the changing role of "third spaces" such as cafes, parks, airport lounges and other public spaces. She is a board member and special interest group leader for NYCwireless (http://www.nycwireless.net ), a non-profit organization that promotes the deployment of free public WiFi networks.

Forlano received her B.A. in Asian Studies from Skidmore College and spent her junior year at Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan. She received a Diploma in International Relations from The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Bologna, Italy and her Master's in Science and Technology Policy from the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. She is proficient in Japanese and has studied Spanish, Italian and French.

Evgenia Fotiou

I was born and raised in Greece where I got my bachelors in Communications and Mass Media from the University of Athens. After spending 2 years at the University of Vienna, Austria and taking some anthropology classes, I decided to pursue a graduate degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I am currently a doctorate candidate in the Department of Anthropology and working on my dissertation entitled: “From Medicine Men to Day Trippers: shamanic tourism in Iquitos, Peru”, which is the result of 18 months of fieldwork. My research interests include: medical anthropology, religion, shamanism, ethnomedicine, ethnobotany, anthropology of consciousness, anthropology of drugs and food, tourism, with an area of specialization in Latin America.

Shreena Gandhi

My name is Shreena Gandhi. I am a PhD candidate in the religions of the Americas track at the University of Florida. Before Flordia I went to Swarthmore and Harvard. I am currently writing my dissertation, "Translating and CommodifyingYoga: From Transcendentalist Musing to Religious Market Staple".And in my free time, I like to cook and make jewelry. Oh, and I will join the faculty at Kalamazoo College in the fall.

Beatrix Mecsi

Beatrix Mecsi is an art historian with a specialization of East Asian Art. She has studied European Art History, Korean and Japanese Studies in University of Budapest (ELTE). After finishing her MA degrees (in Art History 1998 and Japanese Studies 1999), she went to England and obtained her PhD degree in University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in the Department of Art and Archaeology. Currently she is a post-doctoral research fellow at University of Budapest (ELTE), teaching East Asian art history in Budapest and Seoul. Her research interests include religious iconography in East Asia, text-image relationships, art theory and contemporary art.

Rosanne Morici

Rosanne Morici is a doctoral student in the Department of Religion at Syracuse University. Her research interests include: religion, embodiment, and visual culture; Byzantine and Russian icons and iconoclasms; popular images and hagiographies of the Mother of God and the maternal body as a site of power in Soviet and Post-Soviet political cultures.

J. Barton Scott

J. Barton Scott is a doctoral candidate in Duke University's Graduate Program in Religion. He studies the encounter of South Asian religions (especially Islam) with modern secularist epistemologies and practices during the colonial period. His dissertation, tentatively entitled "Divine Exposures: Skepticism, Scandal, and the Public Sphere in Colonial India" will explore imperial efforts to "disenchant" the subcontinent, public sphere discussions of scandalous miracle and charisma, and the truth effects of the print media essential to both.

Jennifer Sime

Jennifer Sime is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Anthropology, Columbia University. She has recently returned from Galicia, Spain where she spent several years conducting ethnographic and historical research on the Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela. Her research interests include anthropology of religion and secularism, mass media, Spanish fascism, and the Galician language and nationalist movements. She is currently living in San Diego, California, writing her dissertation and teaching cultural anthropology at San Diego Mesa College.

Bulbul Tiwari

Bulbul Tiwari is a Ph. D. candidate at the University of Chicago. She is working on a multimedia, digital dissertation based on the performance traditions of The Mahabharata across the last two millennia. Within the broad area of South Asian visual culture, Bulbul has worked most extensively on South Asian film and television.