NOTES ON AUTHORS

Tom Boland defended his PhD thesis entitled ‘The Romanticism of Critical

Subjectivity’ in sociology at the National University of Ireland, Cork (2006). His is

currently lecturing at Waterford Institute of Technology. His articles and essays were

published among others in the European Journal of Social Theory (2006), Culture, Theory and

Critique (2007), History of the Human Sciences (2007), and Textual Practice (2009). His research

interests focus on social theory, the sociology of literature, the problem of critique and

the process of identity formation.

Margaret Harper (PhD, MA at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

is Professor at the Department of English (University of Limerick, Ireland). She studies

and teaches Irish and American literature of the long twentieth century, modernisms,

modern and contemporary poetry, and transnational feminist theory, as well as editing

scholarly editions of the works and manuscripts of Yeats, including his philosophical

book, A Vision (1925), Volume 13 of The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, (New York, 2008,

co-editor).

Agnes Horvath has a PhD in social and political sciences at the European

University Institute in Florence (2000), and teaches political anthropology at the Catholic

University of Milan. Her research interests focus on matters related to mimesis,

schismogenetic moments and trickster formations. Her publications include articles, and

book chapters in Hungarian, English, Italian and French, most recently “The Trickster

Motive in Renaissance Political Thought” (Philosophia, 2007), “Mythology and the

Trickster: interpreting communism” (Routledge, 2008), and “Pulcinella, or the

metaphysics of the nulla: In between politics and theatre” (History of the Human Sciences,

2010) as well as two co-authored books Senkiföldjén (On the No Man’s Land) (Budapest,

Akadémiai, 1989) and The Dissolution of Communist Power (London, Routledge, 1992).

John McNamara has a PhD from Sociology at University College Cork, Ireland,

where he is currently temporary lecturer. His thesis examined the origins of American

nationalism and the religious influence on the making of America, and is currently

preparing a monograph (“American Genesis: Nationalism’s Secular Hierophany”) based

on his PhD thesis. His fields of interest include, politics, religion, race and ethnicity, and

nationalism, focusing in particular on anthropological interpretations of nationalist

devotion in the United States.

Matthias Riedl is Assistant Professor at the History Department of Central

European University, Budapest, and Chair of Comparative Religious Studies. He holds a

PhD from University, Erlangen-Nuremberg/Germany. He is (with Tilo Schabert) coorganizer

of the interdisciplinary and intercivilizational Eranos Conferences and co-editor

of the Eranos volumes. Before coming to Budapest, he taught at University Erlangen-

Nuremberg, Germany, and Duke University, Durham/USA. His research interests are in

the history of Western Christianity, the relation of religion and politics, and political

theology in intercivilizational perspective. He is author of a monograph on the 12th

century apocalyptic writer Joachim of Fiore (2004), author of various articles on the history

of religious and political thought, and co-editor of volumes on Prophets and Prophecies

(2005), Humans at War, at Peace with Nature (2006), Religions - The Religious Experience (2008),

God or Gods? (2009), The Apocalyptic Complex (forthcoming), and Brill's Companion to Joachim

of Fiore (forthcoming).

Arpad Szakolczai is Professor of Sociology at the National University of Ireland,

Cork. His recent and major publications include The Dissolution of Communist Power

(Routledge, 1992, co-authored), Max Weber and Michel Foucault: Parallel Life-Works

(Routledge, 1998), Reflexive Historical Sociology (Routledge, 2000), La scoperta della società

(Rome, Carocci, 2003, co-authored), The Genesis of Modernity (Routledge, 2003), and

Sociology, Religion and Grace: A Quest for the Renaissance (Routledge, 2007), as well as articles

and essays among others in Social Research, the American Journal of Sociology, the British Journal

of Political Science, the International Review of Sociology, International Sociology, Theory, Culture and

Society, Theoria, Current Sociology, The European Journal of Social Theory and The European

Sociological Review.

James Cuffe is currently finishing his PhD at University College Cork. He is

investigating the role of communications technology in social change in contemporary China. His

research interests include: Communication & Technology in contemporary and ancient societies

and exploring theory in anthropology. He is published in Chinese and English on Sino-Irish

relations. He also works as an Anthropology Consultant for Irish firms dealing with Chinese

culture and society.