Gavin Flood is Professor of Hindu Studies and Comparative Religion and Academic Director of the Centre for Hindu Studies at Oxford University. He is the author of An Introduction to Hinduism; The Ascetic Self: Subjectivity, Memory, and Tradition; and The Tantric Body: The Secret Tradition of Hindu Religion.
Charles Martin is a poet, critic, and translator. His translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses received the Harold Morton Landon Award from the Academy of American Poets in 2004. In 2005, he received an Award for Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is the author of Signs & Wonders and Starting from Sleep: New and Selected Poems.