Mark Anthony Neal is associate professor of black popular culture in the Program in African and African-American Studies at Duke University. He wrote What the Music Said: Black Popular Music and Black Public Culture (1998), Soul Babies: Black Popular Culture and the Post-Soul Aesthetic (2002), and Songs in the Key of Black Life: A Rhythm and Blues Nation (2003).

Read a July 23, 2009 article about the warning sent out by health officials concerning Hajj and the swine flu epidemic.

Read a Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia page about Hajj requirements, the fifth pilar of Islam.

Jaime Lara is a research professor at the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies in Tempe, Ariz., where he works in the intersection of the visual arts and religion through various media (architecture, painting, sculpture, prints). He can discuss Hispanic theology and the arts.

Michelle Gonzalez Maldonado is an associate professor of religious studies at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Fla. Her interests include Afro-Cuban studies, feminist theologies and Hispanic religiosity. She wrote Sor Juana: Beauty and Justice in the Americas; Afro-Cuban Theology: Religion, Race, Culture and Identity; and Embracing Latina Spirituality: A Woman’s Perspective.

José Irizarry is a part-time professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova University in Villanova, Pa. He can discuss public theology, religious education, ecumenism, intercultural issues and the arts.

One challenge in writing about the Eastern Orthodox is the debate over numbers. A figure often cited is 3 million adherents in the U.S., with about 2 million in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, 1 million in the Orthodox Church in America, and some tens of thousands in the other 20 major Eastern Orthodox churches. In a […]

Edited by Hannibal Hamlin and Norman Jones (Cambridge University Press, 2011). The King James Bible After 400 Years is a compilation of essays examining the writing and history of the King James Bible from a variety of different academic perspectives.

The New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture has an online exhibit about Malcolm X.