Advisers and Contributors ix Silver Jewelry and Metalwork (4th edition, 2007), Silver Masters of Mexico: Héctor Aguilar and the Taller Borda (1996), and Maestros de Plata: William Spratling and the Mexican Silver Renaissance, a catalog for a traveling exhibit (2002–2004) Caryn E Neumann, Ph.D., teaches history in Ohio Wesleyan University’s Black World Studies Department She is a former managing editor of the Journal of Women’s History Daniel S Nicolae is a fellow at Edinburgh University’s Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies Department He is the coauthor of Lehrbuch des Klassischen Syrisch (Harrassowitz, 2008) Lisa Niziolek is a Ph.D candidate in anthropology at the University of Illinois at Chicago Her research interests include craft specialization, pottery production, pre-state societies in the Philippines, Neolithic Ireland, and the geochemical analysis of archaeological materials Tanure Ojaide, Ph.D., teaches at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where he is the Frank Graham Porter Professor of Africana Studies He specializes in African and pan-African literatures, art, and folklore In addition to winning many literary prizes for his poetry, he has many scholarly publications, including Poetic Imagination in Black Africa (1996), Poetry, Performance and Art: Udje Dance Songs of the Urhobo People (2002), and with Joseph Obi, Texts and Contexts: Culture, Society, and Politics in Modern African Poetry (2004) Penelope Ojeda de Huala is a Ph.D candidate in art history at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where she studies pre-Columbian to contemporary art of Latin America Her research focus is Guatemala and Peru, particularly the enduring thoughts and practices of indigenous cultures as manifested in art Sophie Oosterwijk, Ph.D., is currently a lecturer in history of art at the University of Leicester and honorary editor of the journal Church Monuments She has published widely on medieval childhood, which was the subject of her Ph.D thesis and of her forthcoming monograph with Brepols Publishers Sharon Pruitt, Ph.D., currently teaches art history at East Carolina University’s School of Art and Design Her research interest includes both African and African American art and culture She contributed essays to the following books: African Studies: A Survey of Africa and the African Diaspora (Carolina Academic Press, 1993), Introduction to Kenya: An Interdisciplinary Approach (Carolina Academic Press, 1993), Issues in Contemporary African Art (International Society for the Study of Africa at Binghamton University, 1998), Contemporary Textures: Multidimensionality in Nigerian Art (International Society for the Study of Africa at Binghamton University, 1999), Black American Intellectualism and Culture (JAI Press, Inc., 1999), A Century of African American Art: The Paul R Jones Collection (Rutgers University Press, 2004), and Engines of the Black Power Movement: Essays on the Influence of Civil Rights Actions, Arts, and Islam (McFarland and Company, Inc., 2007) Babak Rahimi, Ph.D, is assistant professor of Iranian and Islamic studies at the University of California, San Diego He is the author of numerous articles on Iran, Iraq, and Turkey; he is also completing a book project, titled Between Carnival and Mourning: Muharram Rituals and the Rise of the Early Modern Iranian Public Sphere, 1587-1666 C.E Andrew Rippin, Ph,D,, F.R.S.C., is professor of Islamic history and dean of the faculty of humanities at the University of Victoria, Canada He is author of Muslims: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (third edition, Routledge, 2005) and The Qur’an and Its Interpretative Tradition (Ashgate, 2001) Bradley Skeen, M.A., has taught at the University of Minnesota, Webster University, and Washington University He is a specialist in magic, religion, and philosophy in late antiquity and has contributed to research in that field in Die Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, among other journals John Soderberg, Ph.D., is the managing director of the Evolutionary Anthropology Laboratory at the University of Minnesota His research focuses on the links between religion and urbanism in early medieval northern Europe Michael J O’Neal, Ph.D., is a writer who lives in Moscow, Idaho He is a frequent contributor to reference and educational books, including Lives and Works: Young Adult Authors (1999), The Crusades (2005), and America in the 1920s (2006) Ilicia Sprey, Ph.D., teaches Asian and European history courses in the Department of History, Saint Joseph’s College, Indiana As a medievalist, she has written on intercultural, diplomatic, social, and economic relations in the premodern world and is the author of The Ancient World: Civilizations of the Near East and Southwest Asia (M E Sharpe, 2007) Dianne White Oyler, Ph.D., teaches African history at Fayetteville State University She is the author of The History of the N’ko Alphabet and Its Role in Mande Transnational Identity: Words as Weapons (2005) as well as articles in the refereed journals Research in African Literature, the Mande Studies Journal, and the International Journal of African Historical Studies Alan M Stahl, Ph.D., is curator of numismatics at Princeton University Among his numismatic publications are The Merovingian Coinage of the Region of Metz (Louvain-laNeuve, 1982), The Venetian Tornesello: A Medieval Colonial Coinage (American Numismatic Society, 1985), and Zecca: The Mint of Venice in the Middle Ages (John Hopkins Univer-