Editors’ Introduction

Author Biographies

• Carole M Cusack, University of Sydney

  Carole M. Cusack is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Sydney. She trained as a medievalist and her doctorate was published as Conversion Among the Germanic Peoples (Cassell, 1998). Since the late 1990s she has taught in contemporary religious trends. She is the author of Invented Religions: Imagination, Fiction and Faith (Ashgate, 2010).

• Rachelle Scott, University of Tennessee

  Rachelle Scott studies the history of Theravada Buddhism in South and Southeast Asia, with an emphasis on contemporary Buddhism in Thailand. Her first book, Nirvana for Sale?: Buddhism, Wealth, and the Dhammakāya Temple (SUNY Press, 2009), examined contemporary debates over monastic and lay wealth in Thailand.