Cogen Bohanec is an Assistant Professor in Sanskrit and Jain Studies at Arihanta Institute where he teaches Sanskrit language, and Jain philosophy and its applications, and Sanskrit and other languages. He is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Claremont School of Theology (CST), and he has taught numerous classes on South Asian Religions and Sanskrit at the Graduate Theological Union (GTU) in Berkeley. Dr. Bohanec specializes in comparative dharma traditions, philosophy of religion, and Sanskrit language and literature, and has numerous publications in those areas. He has a PhD in “Historical and Cultural Studies of Religion” with an emphasis in Hindu Studies from GTU, and he also holds an MA in Buddhist Studies from the Institute of Buddhist Studies at GTU.
Professor Tine Vekemans holds the Ācārya Mahāprajña Chair for Jain Studies at Ghent University. Additionally, she is a postdoctoral research fellow funded by the University’s Special Research Fund (BOF). Her approach to Jain studies combines ethnography with textual study, but always starts from practices and experiences of Jains. Over the past decade, her research touched upon diverse aspects of modern Jainism, including Jain migration history, changing lay- mendicant relations, Jainism in the digital age, and processes of knowledge transfer in the Jain diaspora. Her recent book, Digital & Diaspora – Intertwined Frontiers of Jainism, won the 2023 Bhagwan Kunthunatha Annual Best Book Award.
Venu Mehta, an Assistant Professor of Jainism & Comparative Spiritualities at the Claremont School of Theology, specializes in Jainism with a primary focus on Jain regional-vernacular devotional literature, narratives, and practices. Her PhD dissertation investigates the devotion to the Jain goddess Padmāvatī among the Śvetāmbar Mūrtipūjak Jains in Gujarat. Additionally, her work explores the Jain concept of forgiveness, and the various ways in which the Jain practice of aparigraha’s co-relates with human dignity, sustainability, and Gandhian approach to economy. Her recent research and publication also delve into Jain-Hindu comparative theologies/spiritualities, particularly regarding goddesses. In addition to teaching specialist courses on Jainism, she also instructs courses on South Asian traditions, comparative spiritualities, and gender and women in spiritual practices. Mehta’s research approach often integrates ethnography with textual study, but considers prioritizing the practices, experiences, and expressions of Jains.
Dr. Jeffery D. Long is the Carl W. Zeigler Professor of Religion, Philosophy, and Asian Studies at Elizabethtown College, in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, where he has taught since receiving his PhD from the University of Chicago Divinity School in the year 2000. He is the author, editor, or co-editor of twelve books, including Hinduism in America: A Convergence of Worlds, which won the Rajinder and Jyoti Gandhi Award for Excellence in Theology, Philosophy, and Critical Reflection from the Dharma Academy of North America in 2022. His latest book is Discovering Indian Philosophy: An Introduction to Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist Thought. His work focuses primarily on the religions and philosophies of India, mainly the Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist traditions, and on such themes as nonviolence, pluralism and its metaphysical foundations, the pedagogy of teaching Indic traditions in a Western context, religion and popular culture, and the concept of rebirth. In 2021, he received an award from the International Ahimsa Foundation for his efforts to promote nonviolence through scholarship. In the same year, he received the Ranck Award for Research Excellence from Elizabethtown College. He has spoken three times at the United Nations and appears in documentaries for PBS and the History Channel.
Tillo Detige’s primary research project investigates the Digambara Jaina ascetic lineages of early modern Western and Central India. He works with unpublished manuscript and epigraphic materials collected during extensive field work, surveying ascetics’ memorials and visiting Digambara temples and manuscript collections throughout the region. His work has been published in a number of journal articles and chapters in edited volumes, including Brill’s Encyclopedia of Jainism (2020). Tillo obtained his PhD (2024) from the Center for Religious Studies (CERES) at Ruhr-Universität Bochum (Germany), where he also taught Sanskrit and Hindi. Prior to this, he also worked and lectured at the Department of Languages & Cultures at Ghent University (Belgium, 2012 to 2018) and taught South Asian Buddhism at the Carleton- Antioch Buddhist Studies in India program at Bodhgaya (India, fall 2018). He currently holds the Alka Siddhartha Dalal Endowed Postdoctoral Fellowship in Jainism at the Department of Religion at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, where he also teaches an introductory course on Jainism.
Steven M. Vose (PhD, South Asia Studies, University of Pennsylvania) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History and holder of the Bhagwan Suparshvanatha Professorship in Jain Studies at the University of Colorado-Denver. A historian of Jain communities in western India from the early Islamicate period to the present, his work focuses on community formation and interactions with political powers. His first book, Reimagining Jainism in Islamic India: Jain Intellectual Culture in the Delhi Sultanate (Routledge, forthcoming), is the recipient of the Edward C. Dimock, Jr. Book Prize in the Indian Humanities, awarded by the American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS). His current research examines the effects of neoliberalism and globalization on transnational Jain communities.