Parul Pandya Dhar, Associate Professor in the Department of History, University of Delhi, specializes in the history of ancient and medieval Indian architecture and sculpture and artistic exchange between South and Southeast Asia. An Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow in Indian Art History, Germany (2007-08), she has developed and taught specialized courses at the intersection of art and history at post-graduate and research levels. Her academic commitment to visual art histories is complemented by years of training, performances, and lecture-demonstrations in classical Indian dance in India and abroad. Her books include The Tora?a in Indian and Southeast Asian Architecture (2010, authored), Indian Art History: Changing Perspectives (2011, edited), and Asian Encounters: Exploring Connected Histories (2014, co-edited) among other research writings and projects. Gerd J.R. Mevissen is an independent researcher affiliated to the Asian Art Museum, Berlin, Germany. He studied Architecture at the Technische Universit?t Berlin (Dipl.-Ing. Arch., 1974-80), and Indian Art History at the Freie Universit?t Berlin (M.A., 1985-90). He served as Lecturer at the former Institut f?r Indische Philologie und Kunstgeschichte (Institute unjustifiably discontinued), Freie Universit?t Berlin (1990-95), and as Assistant Curator at the former Museum f?r Indische Kunst, Berlin (2000-02). He is executive editor of the research journals Berliner Indologische Studien (since 1995) and Indo-Asiatische Zeitschrift (since 1997), has edited several volumes of collected papers (since 1991), and published about 70 studies on aspects of ancient Indian art and iconography (Hindu, Buddhist, Jain), focusing on systematic documentation of groups of minor deities.
