Marianne Novy is a professor of English and women’s studies at the University of Pittsburgh. She wrote Reading Adoption: Family and Differences in Fiction and Drama, a book about adoption themes in literature.

Read an Oct. 31, 2012, article from The Huffington Post about the many Mayans who objected to the perceived exploitation of their traditions.

Read a Nov. 25, 2012, article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about “Preppers” – people obsessed with preparing for the end times, who flourished under the shadow of the looming catastrophe.

Kimasi Browne is director of the ethnomusicology program at Azusa Pacific University near Los Angeles, where he is an assistant professor of music. Contemporary religious music trends and hiphop are among his areas of expertise.

Bobby Schuller, head of Hour for Power in Garden Grove, Calif., and grandson of founder Robert Schuller, holds regular hiphop church services at the Los Angeles FaithDome, attracting thousands. Contact through Melanie Vogel, Shepherd’s Grove Public Relations.

The Rev. Ralph C. Watkins is the Peachtree associate professor of evangelism and church growth for Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Ga. Watkins co-authored The Gospel Remix: Reaching the Hip Hop Generation (Judson Press, 2007). Watkins, a pastor and musician, works to resolve gaps between the hiphop generation and its elders.

Ellen Herman is a professor of contemporary American history at the University of Oregon and the creator of the Adoption History Project. She is the author of Kinship by Design: A History of Adoption in the Modern United States, which examines the history of modern adoption.

Read a Nov. 8, 2012, article from Virginia’s WTVR about hotels in Mexico and Central America that used the Dec. 21 date as a hook to lure tourists.

Read a Nov. 30, 2012, article from the New York Times about television networks from using the date of the supposed apocalypse to promote their apocalypse-themed programming.