ICJ - About the Contributors (original) (raw)
Arcana-Siddhi Devi Dasi holds a Masters degree in Social Work. She is a family therapist for children and adolescents, a marriage counsellor, and a supervisor and teacher at a uni-versity hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
(Back to article)
Gerald Carney is professor of Religion at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia. He teaches courses in world religions, especially South Asian religions. His doctoral research at Ford-ham University (PhD, 1979) was a theological study of Kavikarnapura's Caitanya-candrodaya-natakam, a ten-act drama devoted to the life of Caitanya. Subsequent research treated the Gaudiya Vaisnava rasa-sastra, the ritual cycle in Radha-Ramana Mandira, and contemporary rasa-lila dramas in Vrndavana. He is now completing a critical study of Baba Premananda Bharati, a Bengal Vaisnava missionary who went to the US in 1902 and established a Krsna temple in Los Angeles in 1906. An article comparing the arrival of Baba Bharati in the West with that of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada was published in the Journal of Vaisnava Studies in Spring 1998.
(Back to article)
Yudhisthira Dasa, son of Ravindra Svarupa Dasa and Saudamani Devi Dasi. He attended gurukulas in Dallas, Gita-Nagari (Pennsylvania), and Vrndavana, India. He holds a degree in Diplomatic History from the University of Pennsylvania. He was a commissioned officer in the United States Naval Reserve, and served active duty as a division officer on the USS Oliver Hazard Perry. He is pursuing further studies in music and intellectual history.
(Back to article)
Krsna Ksetra Dasa (Kenneth R. Valpey), born in New York in 1950, interrupted UC Berkeley undergraduate architecture studies to become a fulltime missionary in ISKCON in 1972, after meeting Srila Prabhupada and receiving initiation from him that same year in Paris. After several years of missionary work (mainly in Eastern Europe), he resumed academic study in 1995. He is presently a doctoral candidate at the University of Oxford, Theology faculty, writing his dissertation on Caitanya Vaisnava image worship.
(Back to article)
Dr Julius Lipner, who is of Indo-Czech extraction, was born and brought up in India, mainly Bengal. After his PhD at King's College, London he has taught in the Divinity Faculty at the University of Cambridge, where he is now Reader in Hinduism and the Comparative Study of Religion. He has published and lectured widely. His special interests include traditional and modern Vedanta, and 19th century Bengal. He visits India regularly to undertake research and to meet family and friends.
(Back to article)
Norma M. McCaig is the President of Global Nomad Resources, a training and consultation service located in Reston, Virginia, USA, and is the founder and past president of Global Nomads International. Ms. McCaig specialises in programmes for raising awareness of the dymanics of the internationally mobile family, the lifelong impact and uses of a globally nomadic childhood, crosscultural transition and intercultural communication. She is currently an affiliate faculty member of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia and a senior crosscultural trainer with Berlitz International.
(Back to article)
Joseph T. O'Connell is Professor Emeritus in the Study of Religion at the University of Toronto (Canada) and Senior Associate Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Vaishnava and Hindu Studies (UK). His doctorate at Harvard University (USA) was in the Comparative Study of the Major World Religions. The main area of his scholarship is the religious and social history of the Bengal region of eastern India and Bangladesh, with special emphasis on Caitanya Vaisnavas and on Bengali Muslims. He has published many articles on these subjects plus a number of translations from Bengali and Sanskrit texts. He has edited several volumes: on socio-religious movements in India; on Bengali religion and culture; on Bengali immigrants in Canada; and on Jains and Sikhs. He lives in Toronto.
(Back to article)
E. Burke Rochford, Jr., Ph.D. is a Professor of Sociology and Religion at Middlebury College, Vermont. He has studied the Hare Krishna Movement for over 25 years documented in his book Hare Krishna in America. He has published numerous articles on ISKCON and has more recently researched the issues of family development, including ISKCON's second generation. He has also served as a member of ISKCON's North American Board of Education.
(Back to article)
Radha Devi Dasi (Rebecca Cornia, Esq.) is a graduate of Harvard Law School. She has worked as an environmental attorney, assistant professor of law, and a legal consultant. She has also been involved in ISKCON's International Women's Ministry, the Temple Support Office, and ISKCON Communications.
(Back to article)
Visakha Devi Dasi (Jean Grissler) is a photographer and author. She was initiated and married by Srila Prabhupada in Vrndavana, India, in 1971. Visakha and her husband, Yadubara Dasa, produced nine documentary films about the philosophy and practices of Krsna consciousness. She is the author of Our Dear Most Friend, (a Bhagavad-gita for children) and God's Song (an illustrated summary study of Bhagavad-gita).
(Back to article)