Dr. Calvin Mercer's four books and 25 articles are in biblical studies and religion and culture. Also trained in clinical psychology, he practiced professionally part-time for about a decade, and has utilized insights from this discipline in his published work on religion, as exampled in Slaves to Faith: A Therapist Looks Inside the Fundamentalist Mind (2008). He was a founding member and chair for six years of the American Academy of Religion's 'Transhumanism and Religion' group. He is professor of religion and director of the Religious Studies Program at East Carolina University, USA, frequently gives public lectures, and is co-editor, with Steve Fuller, of the series Palgrave Studies in the Future of Humanity and Its Successors.
Dr. Derek F. Maher's research focuses on the interplay between religion, authority, and legitimacy. In particular, he studies how religious narratives influence other forms of discourse, particularly political, historical, scientific, and biographical accounts. His publications include twenty articles, his annotated translation of the classic two-volume One Hundred Thousand Moons: A Political History of Tibet by Tsepon Shakabpa (2010), and the forthcoming volume co-edited with Tsering Wangchuk, The Tulku Institution in Tibetan Buddhism: Past, Present, and Future Prospects of the Reincarnation System (2014). Maher is Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies in the Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences and teaches courses on Buddhism, Hinduism, methodology, and religion and violence at East Carolina University, USA.
