Members

(Academic Lead, Co-Founder)

Milad Milani is a Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies at Western Sydney University. He specialises in the study of Sufism and Islam through a comparative, historical, hermeneutical, and phenomenological lens. A key area of his research is Persian Sufism and Sufi Poiesis, with special reference to Attar of Nishapur and Jesus in the mystical imagination of the Sufis. He is broadly interested in the ontology of Islam. His research draws on Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology, paying special attention to how historical religion is understood in present-day thinking about religion. Having been trained in the history of ideas, it is always ideas that are the guiding principle in his exploration of the past. He has a Ph.D in Studies of Religion from the University of Sydney. He has published in internationally peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes and is the author of  The Nature of   Sufism: An Ontological Reading of the Mystical in Islam  (Routledge 2021),  Sufi Political Thought  (Routledge 2018), and  Sufism in the Secret History of Persia  (Routledge 2014). He has also co-edited  Islam, Civility and Political Culture  (Palgrave Macmillan 2020) and  Female Mystics and the Divine Feminine in the Global Sufi Experience  (MDPI 2021). See Dr Milani's full staff profile here.

(Co-Founder, Adjunct Member)

Paolo Diego Bubbio is Associate Professor of Theoretical Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy and Educational Sciences at the University of Turin (Italy) and Adjunct Associate Professor of Philosophy at Western Sydney University (Australia). His areas of interest include the relationship of the post-Kantian tradition to the later movements of European philosophy, issues in philosophy of religion, and René Girard’s Mimetic theory. He has a Ph.D in Philosophical Hermeneutics from the University of Turin (Italy). He was Research Fellow, Heythrop College (University of London), 2004-2005; Visiting Fellow, University of Warwick, 2008; Professore a Contratto (Visiting Professor), University of Turin, 2005-2009. In 2006 he moved to Australia to take up a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Philosophy at The University of Sydney. In 2009 he got an Australian Postdoctoral Fellowship from the ARC on a joint project (together with Prof Paul Redding) on 'The God of Hegel's Post-Kantian Idealism'. In 2011 he got an ARC Future Fellowship on a project entitled "The Quest for the I: Reaching a Better Understanding of the Self through Hegel and Heidegger" and joined the School of Humanities and Communication Arts at Western Sydney University, where he worked first as Senior Lecturer and then, from 2017 to 2022, as Associate Professor. Select publications include:  Intellectual Sacrifice and Other Mimetic Paradoxes  (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2018),  God and the Self in Hegel: Beyond Subjectivism  (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2017), Sacrifice in the Post-Kantian Tradition. Perspecitivsm, Intersubjectivity, and Recognition(Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2014), Bubbio, P.D., and Redding, P., Eds. Religion After Kant. God and Culture in the Idealist Era(Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2012), Bubbio, P.D. and Quadrio, P.A., Eds. The Relationship of Philosophy to Religion Today(Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2011). See A/Prof Bubbio's full staff profile here.

(Core Member)

Gregory Barton is Professor of History at the University of Johannesburg and Western Sydney University. He is an historian of imperial, environmental and global history.  His most recent book, The Global History of Organic Farming(Oxford, 2018) builds on his interest in cultural movements that have had a global environmental impact.  He served as a Fulbright Scholar to Bangladesh and has received grants from the Australian Research Council on the global history of organic farming and on global climate theory and desiccation. See Prof Barton's full staff profile here.

(Core Member)

Mark G. E. Kelly is Associate Professor and Area Convenor of Philosophy at Western Sydney University. He holds a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Sydney, and was previously Lecturer in Philosophy serially at Middlesex University, Monash University, and Macquarie University, before being appointed Australian Research Council Future Fellow at Western Sydney University in 2014. He is principally known for his expertise on the thought of Michel Foucault and recent French philosophy more broadly and has wide-ranging research interests in social theory, global politics, and the relationship of continental philosophy to apophatic theology. He is the author of six books, including most recently  Normal Now: Individualism as Conformity  (Polity, 2022). He is a frequent contributor to and member of the editorial board of the critical theory journal Telos. Associate Professor Kelly's full staff profile here.

(Core Member)

Peter Mauch has published widely on World War II-era Japanese foreign and security policies. Among his writings are  Sailor Diplomat  (Harvard University Press East Asia Monograph Series); “Asia-Pacific: The Failure of Diplomacy?” (Cambridge History of the Second World War); and “A Bolt from the Blue?” (Pacific Historical Review). Dr Mauch's  full staff profile here.

(Core Member)

Vassilis Adrahtas teaches Islamic Studies at Western Sydney University and Ancient Greek Religion and Myth at the University of NSW. He holds a PhD in the Sociology of Religion from Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, Athens, Greece, and a PhD in Studies in Religion from the University of Sydney. His specialisation is in the Political Phenomenology of Early Christianity, Patristics, Byzantine Philosophy, the History of Religions and Indigenous Australian Studies. He has authored and co/edited more than ten books. His most recent publications are ‘John Damascene’s Reception and Interpretation of the Corpus Areopagiticum’, in S. Ables (ed.)  John of Damascus: More than a Compiler  (Brill 2023); ‘Intellectual Hegemony, Conversion Discourse and Early Christian Apologetic Literature’, in  Religions  2021, 12(9), 782;   Islam, Civility and Political Culture  (Palgrave Macmillan 2021, co-edited with M. Milani); ‘The Feminine in the Poetry of Yunus Emre: A Case Study in the Hierophanic Dialectics of Mystical Islamic Experiences’, in Religions, 12(9), 727; ‘Translating Crisis into Logic: John Damascene’s Iconic Conceptualization of History vis-a-vis Late Neoplatonic Symbolism’, in E. Anagnostou-Laoutides & K. Parry (eds)  Eastern Christianity and Late Antique Philosophy  (Brill 2020); (ed.) Kazantzakis in Australia!, Sydney Branch of International Society of Friends of Nikos Kazantzakis: Sydney, 2024; “John Damascene’s Arguments about the Existence of God: A Logico-Philosophical and Religio-Hermeneutic Approach”, Religions, 2024, 15(10): 1167; “Damascenus Neoplatonicus: Suggestions regarding a Research Agenda for the Study of Neoplatonism in John Damascene’s Oeuvre”, in E. Anagnostou-Laoutides and K. Parry (eds), Later Platonists and Their Heirs among Christians, Jews, and Muslims, Leiden: Brill, 2023, pp. 153-170; and “Global Intercultural Connections in Modern Greek Neopaganism: A Photo-Ethnographic Discussion”, Modern Greek Studies: A Journal for Greek Letters, 2022, 20:175-191.

(Core member)

Alison Short, Senior Lecturer in Music Therapy, Western Sydney University and Adjunct Senior Lecturer, UNSW Medicine, focuses on education and research across music therapy, health services and spirituality. She is particularly interested in connections between resilience and spirituality within an ecological approach to understanding health, and has undertaken research about pandemic-induced new teaching materials to support meaning-making and connection. Alison sees music as a tool to access and support the spirituality of people within broader health and wellbeing practices. Her work as an experienced Registered Music Therapist, and additional specialised music psychotherapy training in the Jungian-oriented Guided Imagery and Music approach gives Alison broad-based experience supporting emergent spiritual issues related to trauma and other causes. Alison also has a Diploma in Theology from the University of Divinity. Selected publications include book chapters:  Reframing motherhood within a Jungian approach to Snow White  in Paolo Azzone, The Wounds of Our Mother Psychoanalysis: New Models for a Psychoanalysis in Crisis. (InTech Open Access, https://www.intechopen.com/online-first/85589, 2023) and  GIM for health and wellbeing in the context of physical and medical care  in Grocke, D. (ed).  Guided Imagery and Music: The Bonny Method and Beyond, 2nd ed. (Barcelona Publishers, 2019). Several of Alison’s peer reviewed articles in occur in the Lutheran Theological Journal: Beyond an earthly reign: Changing custom to meet context, 2022; Herzlich willkommen to our mob, nǐ hǎo and salam, 2021; and Hope-makers in an un-peaceful world, 2020.  A further article currently under review addresses existential needs within the context of fertility treatment,  Evaluating the therapeutic use of music to address anxiety for women undergoing gynaecological and fertility treatments,  2023. See Dr Short’s full staff profile here.

(Core Member, Western graduate)

Dr. Morokoth So is a casual academic at Western Sydney University, teaching in Islamic studies and History. He received his Ph.D. in 2022 from Western Sydney University after having received his Honours in 2016 at the same institution. His dissertation was a study of the Sufi thought in the Timurid period, focusing on the teachings of Shams  al-Dīn  Lāhījī (1433 – 1506/07) as articulated in his famous commentary upon the Gulshan-e Rāz. His honours thesis focused on Ahmad Ghazali and the historical development of Sufi teachings and ideas amongst the Persian Sufis within the historical context of the Seljuq period.

Dr. So received a graduation certificate from Shiraz University for completing Intermediate Persian I, II, and Advanced Persian I courses (2017 – 018). For his classes in Advanced Persian I, he specialised in the reading and comprehension of medieval Persian texts under the guidance of various Iranian teachers from Shiraz University – especially classical works of the Sufi genre of Persian literature. In addition to specializing in Sufism, Dr. So’s research interests include Medieval Iranian history and Classical Persian literature. He has also recently signed a contract with Taylor & Francis to publish his Ph.D. thesis as an upcoming monograph titled, The Persian Sufi Tradition and Shams al-Dīn Lāhījī: Sufi Metamorphosis, as part of Routledge’s prestigious Sufi Series.

(Core Member)

Sarah Bacaller is a writer, editor and researcher from Naarm/Melbourne. She has just completed a PhD in philosophy on G. W. F. Hegel’s philosophy of religion and is the editor of  Apostate: Stories of Deconversion  (Apocryphile 2025). Her writing, which spans various disciplines, has been published in both popular and academic contexts (see www.sarahbacaller.com). Sarah also runs Thrive Audio, producing quality Australian audiobooks for children and young people, and has narrated 70+ commercial audiobooks.

(External Member)

Bryan S. Turner is member of the Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences at the Australian Catholic University. He has held professorships in a number of universities: CUNY USA; National University of Singapore: Cambridge; Wellesley USA; Max Planck Potsdam Germany; University of Utrecht; and in Australia: Flinders; Deakin; Western; and ACU. He is Editor of the  Journal of Classical Sociology  and  Citizenship Studies  and is Series Editor of The Anthem Companions to Sociology. His recent publications include Understanding Islam: Positions of Knowledge(Edinburgh University Press, 2023) and  A Theory of Catastrophe  (De Gruyter, 2023). His latest funded project is  Far Right in Australia: Intellectuals, Masculinity, and Citizenship  (Australian Research Council Discovery Project, 2021–2024). Turner’s areas of expertise include sociology; sociology of religion; social theory; citizenship studies; and sociology of Islam. See Professor Turner's ACU profile here.

(External Member)

Sarah Irving-Stonebraker was recently appointed Associate Professor of History and Western Civilisation at Australian Catholic University. She is a historian of Christian thought, particularly since the Reformation, and in the context of the British Empire. She was awarded her PhD in History from Cambridge University and held then a Junior Research Fellowship at Wolfson College, Oxford University. Her first book, Natural Science and the Origins of the British Empire, was awarded The Royal Society of Literature and Jerwood Foundation Award for Non-fiction. She is Co-Editor of the  Journal of Religious History.  See A/Prof Irving-Stonebraker's Western Sydney staff profile here.

(External Member)

Aydogan Kars earned his PhD in Religion at Vanderbilt University. Currently he is a Senior Researcher at Monash University, running a DECRA project on knowledge transmission in Islamic civilisations. His primary research field is Islamic intellectual history, with a focus on medieval mysticism, theology and philosophy. Here you can find an updated list of Aydogan’s publications: https://research.monash.edu/en/persons/aydogan-kars.

(External Member)

Ashkan Bahrani is a translator and an assistant professor of religion and history at AUI in Morocco. Having earned his Ph.D. in religious studies from Vanderbilt University in Nashville Tennessee, he served Monash University in Melbourne as a postdoctoral research associate for two years before settling in Ifrane, Morocco. His main field of interests are method and theory in the study of religion as well as Arabic and Persian premodern Sufism. Works of translation include:  Umar al-Suhrawardi: Studies, Translations, Editions  (2022: Brill) and Persian translation of Ahmet Karamustafa's  Sufism: the Formative Period  and Veronique Mottier's  Sexuality: A Very Short Introduction  and  most recently Rashid Khalidi's  The One Hundred Years' War on Palestine  (published by Nogaam publishers in London in September 2024).

(External Member)

Kenneth Avery was born and educated in Australia. He studied Hebrew, Aramaic/Syriac, Arabic and Persian at the University of Sydney in the late 1970s. He continued his studies at The University of Melbourne where he completed his doctorate in the year 2000. His thesis was published by Routledge entitled A Psychology of Early Sufi samā‘ : Listening and Altered States. Ken’s real love, however, is for classical Persian poetry, and he published a selection from Farīd al-Dīn ‘Aṭṭār’s  Dīwān  with the help of award-winning poet Ali Alizadeh in 2007: Fifty Poems of ‘Aṭṭār: Texts, translations and analysis. The biographical tradition of early Sufism is also one of Ken’s interests, and in 2014 he published a monograph on the misunderstood  Shiblī: His Life and Thought in the Sufi Tradition  (S.U.N.Y. Press). He is now engaged in publishing a biographical and analytical work on the 9^th century radical Bāyazīd al-Basṭāmī. He is also translating ‘Aṭṭār’s Asrār-nāma, the first English version of this major work. Ken lives in rural Victoria and works as a musician and music teacher.

(External Member)

Mario Baghos is Senior Lecturer in Theology at the University of Notre Dame, Sydney (Broadway). He teaches primarily in the areas of doctrinal theology, e.g. Christology and Eschatology, as well as Patristics, Catholic Social Thought, Research Methods, and related courses. From 2010-2017 and 2020-2022, he taught Patristics and Church History at St Andrew’s Greek Orthodox Theological College (Sydney College of Divinity). He has also lectured in the discipline of Studies in Religion at the University of Sydney, from where he received his doctorate in 2015. He also taught Theology at St Mark’s National Theological Centre (Charles Sturt University). He publishes extensively in the disciplines of Patristics and Byzantine Studies, specifically in the areas of eschatology and religious symbolism in art and architecture. His most recent book is entitled  From the Ancient Near East to Christian Byzantium: Kings, Symbols, and Cities  (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2021). It is currently being translated into Italian and Romanian. His upcoming monograph with Bloomsbury Publishing is entitled Remnants of New Rome: The Sacred Topography of Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire.