Richard Valantasis holds degrees in Historical Theology, Church History, and New Testament and Christian Origins from Harvard University, where he received his doctorate in 1988. His academic research and writing has focused on the theory of asceticism and the Greek ascetical tradition of Late Antiquity. He has taught at Harvard University, Saint Louis University, Hartford Seminary, and the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado. He is a co-editor of the Oxford University Press reference volume, Asceticism, and is known for his ascetical reading of the sayings traditions in The Gospel of Thomas (Routledge, 1997) and The New Q: Translation and Commentary (Trinity International, 2005). He is author of Third-Century Spiritual Guides (Fortress, 1991), Centuries of Holiness (Continuum, 2005), The Beliefnet Guide to Gnosticism and Other Vanished Christianities (Doubleday, 2006), and Walking the Byzantine Road (forthcoming); he is the editor of Religions of Late Antiquity in Practice (Princeton University Press, 2000). Dr. Valantasis is Professor of Asceticism and Christian Practice and the Director of the Anglican Studies Program at Candler School of Theology / Emory University.

An artist as well as a teacher and scholar, Deborah J. Haynes received her Ph.D in Fine Arts and Religion at Harvard University. She is currently Professor of Fine Arts at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

James D. Smith III also received his Th.D. from Harvard University and is currently Associate Professor of Church History at Bethel Seminary San Diego and Lecturer in Theology and Religious Studies at the University of San Diego. He also serves on the pastoral staff of College Avenue Baptist Church.

After many years on staff at several scholarly and educational publishers, Janet F. Carlson is currently an independent editor and writer. She has been a friend and admirer of Margaret R. Miles for twenty-five years.

""One of the great joys of the academic life is to pay homage in a Festschrift to a scholar who has influenced both colleagues and students over years of interaction and friendship both professional and personal. This volume honors a scholar and theologian of historical theology, a theorist and a practitioner of religion and the arts, and a keen analyst of cultural trends both ancient and modern. . . .
""[Margaret R.] Miles's prodigious production as a scholar has legendary qualities. Her dozen-plus books alone explore history, patristics, ancient philosophy, art and art history, spiritual formation and religious practice, critical theory, film, ethics and values, personal growth, gender and women's studies, as well as her true academic loves, Augustine and Plotinus. . . . The breadth and depth of her own work and her influence upon others demands an expansive volume, which the editors of this Festschrift unfortunately had to restrict to four categories--Historical Theology, Religion and Culture, Religion and Gender, and Religion and the Visual Arts--in order to capture the heart of our appreciation for her.""
--from the Introduction