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Tuesday, March 5, 2024

CFP: New Volume --The Practice of Pilgrimage in a Global Early Modern Context






 We are seeking contributions to a volume exploring pilgrimage in a global context from the mid-fifteenth to the mid-eighteenth century. This volume is under consideration for publication in the book series Reflections on Early Modernity / Réflexions sur la première modernité published by the journal Renaissance and Reformation/Renaissance et Réforme. Whether discussing visitations of local shrines or the great trans-regional events like the Hajj and pilgrimages to faraway lands, the rite of pilgrimage kept believers on the move, making pilgrims one of the most visible manifestations of mobility and religious devotion. At the same time, they served as central agents in reconstituting religious themes and notions throughout the early modern period.  Pilgrimage was an intensely social and cultural event, as groups of various travelers encountered each other, as well as other cultures, and experienced new modes of living and other ways of worshiping. As a popular rite, it was also an economic driver of local economies, providing services and goods for travelers, which served the interests of powerful authorities. After 1450, the expansion of maritime trading routes, wars, religious change and a sharp rise and legitimization of curiosity, were among the many forces that worked the extend the global reach of many faiths. These forces also reshaped the practice of pilgrimage in the process. 

It is in this context of an increasingly interconnected and changing early modern world that this volume will offer a forum for an investigation of early modern pilgrimage in a comparative context. We are seeking contributors working from the perspective of diverse disciplines (e. art history, history, literature, anthropology), religious traditions (ie. Buddhism, Shintoism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity) and regional contexts who could engage with one or more of the following themes: 

 

Pilgrimage and Identity

Journeys of pilgrimage created a space where encounters took place among pilgrims themselves, especially those who traveled in a group; between pilgrims and people or communities they met on their way, especially the communities who lived next to the holy places - the destination of the journey; an encounter with the holy sites; as well as with the pilgrim's own self. These encounters created many opportunities for the re-examination of the pilgrims' boundaries of identity - religious and cultural - as they were used to mark them in their countries of origin. What was the contribution of these encounters to shaping a pilgrim's religious identity? Or the identity of a pilgrim's community of origin?  Or alternatively: How the pilgrim's boundaries of identity are reflected in his description of the "other communities", of the holy sites, of the journey? 

These are only a few possible questions to be discussed.

 

 

Pilgrimage and the Construction of Power

Just as the purposes and motives of pilgrimage vary, so do the relationships between pilgrims and political rulers. Many institutions connected with sacred travel have been controlled or sponsored by such authorities, who could collect contributions from pilgrims visiting the shrines within their lands while promoting their reputations as devout leaders. How did these institutions used pilgrimage to build their power? How did it work when rulers and pilgrims were not of the same religion or culture? How did it work when the holy site was worshiped by more than one religion?

Pilgrimages have also prompted behaviors that have proved deeply threatening to political and religious authorities. How did the authorities react to the pilgrims' search for divine favor? How did they react to their temporary release from everyday life, and the volatile potential of a mass movement of people?

 

The Practice of Pilgrimage (ie. liturgy, relics, markets, hospices)

Although pilgrimage is considered to be a journey taken for spiritual reasons and it usually entails some separation from the everyday world of home, it creates a physical world of its own, not to mention pilgrimage sites tend to have a material focus. Pilgrimage involves, first and foremost, a movement across physical and cultural landscapes, that raises the questions of: routs, vehicles, inns, money-changers, translators, or guides. What are the souvenirs, or relics, that were being transported home? Their importance for the pilgrim's community? What were the cultural performances, or rituals, whether at the holy sites or in social encounters, that pilgrims were involved with?   

 

Shrines and their Replicas 

The phenomenon of establishing or creating equivalents to sacred sites – and occasionally, to an entire city (Jerusalem, Rome), is known in more than a few contexts. It can be a second burial site of a holy person, a sacred tradition being celebrated in more than one site, etc. Documenting the origin and the replicas of a holy site is one goal, yet another will be to discuss what makes a site an original? And what makes it a replica? What were the historical contexts, and purpose for their creation? And how did they affect pilgrimage routes and practices? 

 

 

Pilgrimage Testimonies: Written and Visual/Pictoral 

The testimonies (written, visual, pictoral, other) created by pilgrims testifies to the various ways in which the physical movement of pilgrims between places and cultures shaped the intellectual and material cultures of communities in both the pilgrims' places of origin and the places they visited. These testimonies also interacted with, and became vessels of, myriad intellectual and other traditions (scientific, theological, literary, other), traditions that during the early modern period were shifting in the ways that also came to reshape common perceptions of the world in which pilgrims lived including conceptions of the sacred.

 

Instructions for the Proposals 

Each chapter should address some of the questions raised in at least one of the emphases outlined above. The maximum word length for each article is 10,000 words, including all notes and images. To submit a proposal for an article, please send an abstract in either English or French of no more than 600 words and a brief c.v. to Dr. Orit Ramon oritra@openu.ac.il no later than March 31, 2024. You will hear by April 1, 2024 if your proposal to contribute a chapter to the volume has been accepted. We will accept proposals from authors at any stage from advanced graduate students to senior scholars.

 

For questions, please feel free to send an email to any of the editors:

Dr. Orit Ramon, Dept of History, Philosophy and Judaic Studies, Open University of Israel (oritra@openu.ac.il )

Dr. Megan Armstrong, Dept McMaster University, Canada (marmstr@mcmaster.ca )

Dr. Yamit Rachman-Schirre, Ben-Zvi Institute for the Study of Jewish Communities in the East (yamit.rachman@mail.huji.ac.il )

 

Contact Information

 

Dr. Orit Ramon, Dept of History, Philosophy and Judaic Studies, Open University of Israel (oritra@openu.ac.il )

Dr. Megan Armstrong, Dept McMaster University, Canada (marmstr@mcmaster.ca )

Dr. Yamit Rachman-Schirre, Ben-Zvi Institute for the Study of Jewish Communities in the East (yamit.rachman@mail.huji.ac.il )

Contact Email
marmstr@mcmaster.ca

Saturday, March 2, 2024

Call for Papers/Panels: Chautari Annual Conference –Kathmandu, Nepal on November 27−29, 2024

 Call for Papers/Panels

Chautari Annual Conference – 2024

Martin Chautari (MC) is organizing the Chautari Annual Conference in Kathmandu, Nepal on November 27−29, 2024. The aim of this conference is to promote research culture in the humanities and social sciences in Nepal. MC invites submission of abstracts of research papers or abstracts of the theme-based panels from eligible researchers or institutions who will have completed their research by the abstract submission deadline.

Preferences

  • The theme of the research should be related to Nepal; comparative work is also welcome provided that Nepal-related content is substantial.
  • Young/women researchers are highly encouraged to submit the abstracts.


Abstract guidelines

  • Abstracts can be in English or Nepali and should be of 500 words.
  • The title of the proposed paper, a short description of the research base, and the paper’s main arguments/findings must be clearly stated.
  • Abstracts for panels should consist of its title and a brief description, and the abstract of each paper in the panel should also be included.
  • A one-page CV of the authors including their current contact details should be attached.
     

Notifications

  • The receipt of abstract submission will be acknowledged by e-mail.
  • All participants, including paper presenters and panelists, are required to register to attend the conference (Registration fee NRs. 700 per person).
  • Participants are expected to make their own arrangements for travel and accommodation.
     

Important dates
Call for abstracts: January 18, 2024
Abstract submission deadline: June 10, 2024
Announcement of accepted abstracts: July 25, 2024
Deadline for the submission of full papers (max 5,000 words): October 31, 2024
Announcement of accepted papers: November 10, 2024
Conference days: November 27−29, 2024
 

 

Contact Information

Abstracts and queries should be sent to
conference@martinchautari.org.np and mcannualconf@gmail.com

Further information can be obtained from:
Conference Organizing Committee
Martin Chautari
27 Jeetjung Marg, Thapathali, Kathmandu, Nepal
Phone: (+977 1) 5338050/4102027/4102243

Contact Email
conference@martinchautari.org.np

Thursday, February 29, 2024

Call For Applications: Funded Ambedkar Summer School 2024-Indian Institute of Dalit Studies- May 19-24, 2024





Ambedkar Summer School, a week-long residential programme, organised by IIDS and RLS, aims to develop the capacity of youths from marginalised social groups by strengthening the knowledge discourse and critical understanding of issues related to public policy in practice through reading/writing, dialogue, debates, discussions and critical questioning using lived experiences.
Young research scholars and activists who are working on inter-group inequality, marginalization and social exclusion in public policy in India can apply.

The applicants need to send extended abstract (around 1000 words) along with annotated bibliography on the Public Policy and Marginalized Social Groups. 
The applicants also need to send their detailed CV along with the application.

The organisers will bear the cost of travel (train AC three tier), boarding and lodging during the course of the programme.

Applications should be sent by email to the programme convener  at 


Last date of application: March 25, 2024
Notification to the selected participants: April 5, 2024
Ambedkar Summer School 2024: May 19-24, 2024

For  more details: https://dalitstudies.org.in/ambedkar-summer-school/

or 
https://www.facebook.com/rosaluxsouthasia

CFP International Conference “Literary Recycling for Postdigital Readers.” A Digital Epistemology for the Recycling of Literatures?: Digital Literary Studies under Debate -Sep 26 - 27, 2024


Now that we live immersed in the postdigital era without hardly noticing it and that any given cultural object seems susceptible to be recycled by a digital technology available to anyone, it is time to ask ourselves about the underlying conceptual and methodological models that these technologies impose.

What kind of cultural recycling (of reading, of literatures, of literary histories) are the so-called Digital Humanities proposing? We observe that the construction of digitised corpora, the essentially quantitative and probabilistic methods, and the capacity of machines to quantify data propose a model of objectivity, a single epistemology that seems to clash with plural hermeneutics.

If these methods make it possible to look at the past through new lenses, how can we do so without forgetting the interstices and ambiguities that they leave out?  Can phenomena of the past, such as the transcultural or transtemporal interweavings and the mediality of other eras (in contrast to the present one) be helpful to understand more precisely the mediatisation and recycling of literature today? Particularly, those mediations and recycling carried out by Digital Humanities’ methods?

It is not a new model, it is an old one: we only have to take a look at its history (its promises can already be found in nineteenth-century positivism) or at the institutionalisation of Digital Humanities as a disciplinary field, which tends to be conservative in its principles and hierarchies. Nevertheless, this model is considered innovative in terms of its creation, modification, and introduction of a socio-cultural use in literary studies. This is indeed why we must question the epistemological bias of this model. In culture, in literatures, biases are observable. We need to critically question the specific characteristics of digital methodologies in the field of literary studies and their underlying conceptualisations and epistemologies, since they can guide future approaches, as well as point to its limitations and blind spots: we need Critical Digital Humanities.

Contributions may focus on one of the following aspects:

- Theories and methods of literary analysis in Digital Humanities: limitations and how to overcome them.

- Methods and applications of the digital analysis of literary corpora and texts as forms of cultural recycling: underlying conceptualisations.

- Analysis of mixed methods that blend previous literary-theoretical traditions and procedures that are specific to the Digital Humanities: epistemological foundations.

- Analysis of processes of cultural and transtemporal interweaving in literatures using digital methodologies: possibilities and limitations.

- Macro-recycling of literary histories: new focuses, blind spots.

The languages of the conference will be Spanish, English and German. Guest lectures will be translated into Spanish.

Key speakers: Anita Traninger (Freie Universität Berlin) and Rabea Kleymann (Technische Universität Chemnitz)

Interested applicants can send their proposals including name, institution, email address, title of the proposal, keywords and an abstract of at least 250 words to reclit-ji@ucm.es by March 15, 2024. The committee's decision on the acceptance of the proposals will be notified within two months.

A monographic publication will be released with the contributions selected by the scientific committee.



Faculty of Philology, Complutense University of Madrid, September 26 and 27, 2024

Organised by LEETHI Group

Coordinators: Miriam Llamas, Amelia Sanz, Secretary: Irene Pérez

Scientific Committee: Tina Escaja (The University of Vermont), Alckmar Luiz dos Santos (Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina), Teresa Numerico (Università degli studi Roma Tre), Manuel Portela (University of Coimbra), Johanna Vollmeyer (Universidad Complutense de Madrid)

Web of the event: https://www.ucm.es/leethi/literary-recycling-for-postdigital-readers 

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Call for Chapters – Cultural Depictions of the Stepmother: Literature, Stage, and Screen



This call is for abstracts for a scholarly, international edited collection entitled, Cultural Depictions of the Stepmother: Literature, Stage, and Screen. Currently I am seeking a number of academics and professionals in the field who might like to send me an abstract for consideration for inclusion in the book.



The aim of this scholarly edited collection is to reveal how, in any society, the personal expectations and actual experiences of the stepmother may differ from the societal and cultural expectations and realities of the role. The further aim is to show how the stepmother is perceived in the popular views of a particular society, as demonstrated in the literature, stage, screen, and pop culture narratives, of that society.



To whatever degree, every culture in the world is different to all others. Yet, in any culture, religious and cultural beliefs are inseparable, intrinsic one to the other, and are important to the traditions, customs, practices and laws of any particular culture or society. One figure that remains consistent in almost every culture, and that attracts the attention, is the stepmother. Regardless of whether a culture is mainly monogamous or polygamous, the stepmother is one of the female figures that are central to the family, the community and hence the society and the culture. Various sources define the stepmother as: a woman who is married to one’s father after the divorce or separation of one’s parents or the death of one’s natural mother; a non-biological female parent who is married to a child’s biological male parent. An added complexity exists: statistics indicate that globally, there has been an increase of children born outside of marriage and who are raised by their cohabiting or non-cohabiting parents. Thus, a stepmother can be a woman who either marries or is the female partner of a man who has biological children resulting from a former marriage, or a previous union with some other woman. A woman may also become a stepmother by default as in the case of, say, raising the children of a deceased (or otherwise absent) relative, or an orphan or an abandoned child as if her own offspring. Thus, given that cultural and religious, and social traditions, and laws vary widely across the globe, a woman may become the stepmother either by fact or by custom, or by religious or civil law, or by de facto relationship, or by guardianship. In most though not necessarily all cultures, and according to the religious and cultural beliefs and laws of a culture, as well as the civil laws of that country, a man who has been but is no longer married may remarry; and in some other cultures also, a man who is currently married may marry or take a second wife who may be expected to act as stepmother to his biological children by another previous marriage or union that has ended, or by agreement between the child’s/children’s biological parents.



It is generally understood that whether she is welcomed by her new family or not, a man’s first wife or female partner brings with her some baggage into the life of the man she either weds or cohabits or has a relationship with, and hence into the family into which she marries or enters in some way. Perhaps this may be more so in the case of the stepmother—a second (or further) wife or female partner of a man who already has a biological child/or children from a former relationship. Sometimes, too, a woman who becomes a stepmother will bring her own biological offspring into the union. It is well documented that parenting can be a difficult task at times. For a stepmother, the challenges, problems, and the difficulties in raising some other woman’s biological children may differ to those experienced by the biological mother. Questions arise: within any culture, what are the implications for a woman who weds or become the female partner of a widower or a divorced or separated man who is actively involved with, or is responsible for, his biological child/children from a previous union? Likewise, what are the implications for a stepmother in a) a polygamous arrangement, and b) for a stepmother in a monogamous relationship?



Some suggestions for potential contributors to consider, and that could be addressed, may include but not limited to, are:
What are the cultural and social duties and expectations of the stepmother; and what are her personal realities and expectations, as depicted in the popular culture of a particular culture/society? Is it possible to detect differences or sameness between the fictionalized portrayals and the realities and social dictates of that culture?
How do class, ethnicity, culture, race, gender, and possibly history, shape depictions of the stepmother, as indicated in the popular screen, stage, and literary productions of any one particular culture?
What is the range of ways in which the stepmother is represented in the popular/social culture of the various societies?
Are there any powerful cultural or socially historical antecedents for the representations of the stepmother in popular/social culture, as screen, stage, and literary productions?
What are the creators’ and/or the producers’ intentions behind their portrayals of the stepmother; what are their messages for their audiences?
How would we establish the underlying cultural, historical, or production motivations for particular depictions of the stepmother? How often, if at all, are these representations told from the point-of-view of the stepmother herself? Alternatively, how often, if at all, are these representations told from the point-of-view of the stepchild/stepchildren, or the husband or partner of that woman herself?
Is there a difference between the ways in which the stepmother is depicted in film for small and large screen, and between those mediums to the depictions in drama, and to literature? Or in these depictions, is there a reasonably broad consensus between these genres?



This collection of scholarly essays will make an intervention in the field: it will be the first of its kind to make a comprehensive study of what being a stepmother means to and for the woman, to the family, the community, the culture, and the society to which she belongs. This to investigate whether or not there are characteristic features of the stepmother between cultures that may have either some similarity, or that are totally dissimilar; explore the popular beliefs and popular culture in relation to stepmother-hood in any one or more society/ies; document and record how various eastern and western societies perceive and represent the socially and culturally important figure of the stepmother in screen, stage, and literary works, including folk tales and pop culture narratives; indicate if there is agreement or difference between the various cultures on how the figure of the stepmother is depicted in popular culture to the viewing/reading audiences; establish a new and dynamic area of theoretical research crossing family studies, women’s studies, cultural studies, social history, gender studies, social studies, and the humanities in general; point the way to possible future cross-disciplinary work through examining various peoples and societies by way of cultural depictions of the stepmother; and permit scholarly consideration of the extent to which the creators and producers of narratives about the stepmother place this figure on the perimeter of society or at its center.



Submission instructions:

At this initial stage, in lieu of “chapters,” this proposed work, Cultural Depictions of the Stepmother, calls for extended abstracts for consideration for inclusion in the book.
The extended abstracts must be more than 1,500 words and less than 2,000 words. Full-length chapters of not less than, say, 7,000 words, and no more than 8,500 words each (including notes but excluding references lists, title of work, and key words), will be solicited from these abstracts.
Please keep in mind that your essay-chapter will be written from your extended abstract. Your abstract will carry the same title as your essay-chapter
To be considered, an abstract must be written in English, and submitted as a Word document.
When writing your abstract use Times New Roman point 12, and 1.15 spacing.
At the beginning of your extended abstract, immediately after the title of your work and your name, add 5 to 8 keywords that best relate to your work.
Use the Chicago Manual of Style 16th Edition.
Since this work is intended for Lexington Books, USA, please use American (US) spelling not English (UK) spelling, and not Australian English spelling.
Use the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary.
For this project it is most important to use an impersonal academic voice when writing your abstract, and possibly your chapter later. That is, do not use the teacherly voice (“as we will see…”; “here we see…”; “as it will become clear”; …); and do not use 1st person or the personal voice (I; We will find; We find; You; Us; …).
Use endnotes not footnotes, use counting numbers not Roman numerals, and keep the endnotes to a bare minimum, working the information into the text where possible.
Do cite all your work in your extended abstract as you would in a full chapter: a) In the body of the abstract, add parenthetical in-text citations (family name of author and year, and page number/s) (e.g. Smith 2019, 230); b) And fully reference all in-text citations in detail and in alphabetical order, in the References list at the end of your abstract.
Please send your completed abstract as a Word document attached to an email, by the date given in this call for papers.
To this same email please also attach, as separate Word documents, the following:
Your covering letter, giving your academic title/s, affiliation, your position, and your home and telephone numbers, your home address, and your email contact details.
A short bio of no more than 250 words.
Your C.V., including a full list of your publications and giving the publishing details and dates, and including those in press.

Deadline for abstract submissions: April 30, 2024

Editor: Dr Jo Parnell, PhD| Researcher, and Honorary Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Science, College of Human and Social Futures, University of Newcastle, Australia.



Papers should be forwarded to:

Monday, February 26, 2024

Call For Applications : Summer workshop on The Question of Representation in #Contemporary #Indian #Literature( Funded Accommodation)-University of Tübingen, Germany



Summer Workshop at the University of Tübingen, Germany

10-12.06.2024 (in person)



In Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, The Wife of Bath refers to the Aesopian fable of the painting of the lion. The lion complains about the painting, which demonstrates a man defeating a lion, and asserts that the painting would look very different if a lion had painted it. And so asks the Wife of Bath: ‘Who painted the lion, tell me, who?’



If the dominant narrative is shaped by the powerful and the victorious, then voice, narration, and representation become powerful tools, especially for marginalized groups.. Re-examining and interrogating these frames of reference help to find new answers to important questions: who gets to tell whose story? Who has what at stake and who is representing whom? Where does the line between fiction and authentic representation get drawn?

Who is allowed to tell whose story? If in fiction one is allowed to only tell their own privately lived experiences, how is that fiction? What does it do to representation of groups that are already endangered?

In this context, the question of authentic voice and its representation looms paramount and the writing of literature its biggest ally.



Gayatri Chakrovarty Spivak asked in her influential work ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ (1988), and scholarly work in literary and critical studies is still attempting to satisfactorily answer the question. Are the powerless ever able to raise their voice in a world where even the medium of language is biased to favor those in power?

Postcolonial and subaltern studies have repeatedly questioned the ways in which established ideologies suppress the needs and demands of the most vulnerable sections of a society. These questions take on even more significance in literature from India where issues of caste, class, religion and gender, and the many inbuilt inequalities and discriminations, constantly determine identity and its representation. The reading of literature presents a richer understanding of this new and complex world, where capitalism disrupts and catapults lives, and a postcolonial framework seeks to define itself without its colonial past, and not simply react to it.



The workshop’s interdisciplinary approach looks at the topic and the literary frameworks that surround it from two points of view: the literature on the page and its many facets, as well as the tools employed in the writing of that literature. The two-pronged outlook will help deepen the understanding of what is perceived as literature and its production.

The workshop encompasses the wider areas of subaltern and postcolonial studies, as well as the craft employed in a work of literature. Researchers are invited to engage with the questions of representation and its nature in contemporary Indian literature, as well as in the wider postcolonial framework.



The following themes within research will be given priority for participation:



· Subaltern and marginalized voices in Indian literature

· Point of view and narrative in fiction

· Representation of the subaltern

· Identity and power in terms of religion, caste, class, gender, and sexuality

· Writing and marginalized voices

· Narrative and language

· Revisionist narratives

· Identity politics in Indian literature

· The writing of contemporary Indian fiction

· Identity in postcolonial literature

· Postcolonial subjects and identities

· Nation, nationalism and literature

· Perspective and voice in creative writing



For an interdisciplinary approach, we encourage participants who work in literary studies, creative writing, history, philosophy, anthropology, cultural studies, linguistics, psychology, political sciences, sociology, and artificial intelligence for arts to apply.



We invite researchers to present 20 minute presentations of papers and articles. Abstracts of up to 300 words, with a brief bio note, and a short academic CV, should be sent to srishti.chaudhary@uni-tuebingen.de or on the form linked here:



https://forms.gle/GBML7SoGMiFJrKmy7



Deadline: 15.03.2024

Notice of acceptance: 22.03.2024



The accommodation for the duration of the workshop for all participants is funded as a part of the Excellence Strategy of the German Federal and State Governments.

Transportation costs will have to be self-funded.




Srishti Chaudhary

Call For Research Articles on Film Studies in Southeast Asia, China, East Asia, and India's Northeast-Rising Asia Journal

 Rising Asia Journal invites Research Articles on Film Studies in the geographical areas of Southeast Asia, East Asia (Japan, China, the Koreas, and Taiwan), and India's North-East Region, on all aspects of these Asian societies. Authors may use any thematic or theoretical discourse such as gender, race, colonialism and post-colonialism, and others.

Articles should be between 5,000 to 10,000 words in length, with footnotes, and Works Cited.

Authors are urged to visit the journal's website at www.rajraf.org to read the submission guidelines. 

Articles should be original, and should offer a new and innovative perspective.

Please send your articles to our Editorial Board Member Professor Tuan Hoang at tuan.hoang@pepperdine.edu as well as to our Editor-in-Chief Dr. Harish C. Mehta at hmehta76@yahoo.caRising Asia Journal invites Research Articles on Film Studies in the geographical areas of Southeast Asia, East Asia (Japan, China, the Koreas, and Taiwan), and India's North-East Region, on all aspects of these Asian societies. Authors may use any thematic or theoretical discourse such as gender, race, colonialism and post-colonialism, and others.

Articles should be between 5,000 to 10,000 words in length, with footnotes, and Works Cited.

Authors are urged to visit the journal's website at www.rajraf.org to read the submission guidelines. 

Articles should be original, and should offer a new and innovative perspective.


Deadline for submissions:  June 1, 2024
full name / name of organization:  Rising Asia Journal

contact email:  tuan.hoang@pepperdine.edu

Please send your articles to our Editorial Board Member Professor Tuan Hoang at tuan.hoang@pepperdine.edu as well as to our Editor-in-Chief Dr. Harish C. Mehta at hmehta76@yahoo.ca