Sneha Chakraborty is pursuing her graduate studies in the Department of English at the University of South Dakota, Vermillion. Her research interests are postcolonial and feminist studies, and gender based hierarchical oppression especially in the underrepresented communities. She is interested in adaptations of Shakespearean plays into performances of dance and cinema. She has published a number of articles such as “The Moor of Venice: Critically Analyzing Othello Based on Race, Color, Gender as the Social Constructor and the Facilitator to kill Desdemona” in Litinfinite: A Journal of Literature and Social Sciences; and “Critically Commenting on the Process of Demythologization at Work in Fakir Mohan Senapati’s ‘Six Acres and a Third,’” in the International Journal of English and Studies. She is a classically trained dancer and likes to watch medical thrillers and sitcoms in her leisure time.
Siu Heng is a veteran arts administrator and film program manager with over twenty years of experience, and is also a member of the Hong Kong Film Critics Society comprising professional film critics. He has worked as a writer, translator and editor on publications in the arts and creative industries. He graduated from the University of Hong Kong with a Bachelor of Arts in Comparative Literature and Translation, and a Master of Arts in Literary and Cultural Studies with a focus on Hong Kong cinema. He publishes widely in newspapers, magazines and academic journals on Hong Kong cultural and film studies.
Pfokrelo Kapesa is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science, University of Allahabad, India. She has a PhD in Diplomacy and Disarmament from Jawaharlal Nehru University. Her research focuses on Conflict Studies, India-China relations, and Indigenous studies. She was a Swedish Institute Fellow established by the Swedish Government (2015-16), and recipient of the Cariplo Foundation Scholarship by Network for the Advancement of Social and Political Sciences, Italy (2018). She has presented at the Belfast Colloquium on “Political Organisations of Crossborder Minorities” held at the Queen's University Belfast, and Ventana Conference on “Decolonial Dialogues from Within and Beyond the Global Margins” held at the University of York. She has been invited as plenary speaker to the Sustainable Research and Innovation Congress / Sustainability Science Days 2024. She is a Regional Co-Lead for Asia and Oceania on Global Indigenous Youth Summit on Climate Change (GIYSCC). She has published widely in academic journals, edited books, and in the media. She has most recently reviewed Understanding the India-China Border: The Enduring Threat of War in High Himalaya by Manoj Joshi in International Affairs, Volume 99, Issue 1 (January 2023).
Tommy Koh is currently Emeritus Professor of Law at the National University of Singapore, Ambassador-At-Large at the Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Chairman of the International Advisory Panel of the Centre for International Law at the NUS. He had served as Dean of the Faculty of Law of NUS, Singapore’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York, Ambassador to the United States of America, High Commissioner to Canada, and Ambassador to Mexico. He was President of the Third UN Conference on the Law of the Sea. He was also the Chairman of the Preparatory Committee for and the Main Committee of the UN Conference on Environment and Development (Earth Summit). He was the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy to Russia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. He was the founding Chairman of the National Arts Council, founding Executive Director of the Asia-Europe Foundation, and former Chairman of the National Heritage Board. He was Singapore’s Chief Negotiator in negotiating an agreement to establish diplomatic relations between Singapore and China. He was also Singapore’s Chief Negotiator for the U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreement.
Vinod Kumar Pillai is an independent scholar with an interest in literary fiction, development studies, popular science and short-story writing. He has published book reviews in Rising Asia Journal (www.rajraf.org) on topics related to the literatures and politics of Southeast Asia, and is a reader for the Bengal Club Book Club. He holds a graduate degree in Agricultural Sciences, and worked for over thirty years in banking, specializing in industrial credit, training, behavioral science, and counseling. Besides literary fiction, development studies, popular science and training, he also devotes time to jyotish, podcasting and stock photography.
Mohini Maureen Pradhan is an independent scholar who holds BA and MA degrees in English Language and Literature from Loreto College, Kolkata. Her research interests are in history, mythology, art, music, and cinema. She has an article on the works of the Sri Lankan-Canadian novelist and poet, Michael Ondaatje, in a forthcoming book from Routledge. She is an Assistant Editor for the Rising Asia Journal and has written a paper on “Feminism and Human Rights,” published on webplatform4dialogue.net. She has co-authored the paper, “Power and the Archive in the works of William Somerset Maugham,” that traces the concept of the archive by Jacques Derrida and the power relationship between the characters of Maugham. Both papers were collaborative efforts co-authored with her classmates at Loreto College.
Salikyu Sangtam is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Tetso College in Dimapur, India. He teaches political theory and research methods. His research focuses on Chinese thought, and non-western political thought. He is a regular contributor for the Rising Asia Journal. In 2023, he was invited to an international conference held in Beijing, China organized by the School of Philosophy, Renmin University of China on the theme “Chinese-Style Modernization: Philosophical Perspectives in a Global Context.” And in the early parts of 2024, he was also invited to an international conference organized by the Wuyi Research Institute of Chinese Civilization, Wuyi University, Nanping, China on the theme “Wuyi Forum on the Two Integrations of Five Millennia of Chinese Civilization and Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.” In addition, he has served on numerous invited occasions as a resource person in academic workshops as well as delivering lectures.
Nicole Smith completed her M.A. in Sociology with a Double Degree from Bielefeld University in Bielefeld, Germany, and Bologna University in Bologna, Italy in September 2021, and a B.A. from McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada in 2013. Her background is in mental health and addiction. She is interested primarily in interpersonal relationships as well as social inequality and social justice. Her articles have been published in Rising Asia Journal. She has written papers on migrant ethics of care in home healthcare, consequences of misperceptions of social inequality, as well as the potential role of genetics in addressing educational inequality and pedagogical advancement. Her Master’s thesis explored the use of trauma-informed care by social services assisting people experiencing homelessness during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic. In the future she plans on pursuing her PhD potentially in Anthropology with a keen interest on executing an ethnography on culture-based interventions employed in addiction treatment for Indigenous populations in Canada.
Xinkai Sun is a second-year graduate student in the Film and TV Studies Program at Boston University. His research interests include Film Theory, Chinese Film Studies, and Russian Film Studies. His film review of Spring in a Small Town will be published in the quint. Currently, he is working on his master’s thesis about trauma presentation and temporality in Chinese postwar films (1945-1949). As for his future research, he is interested in discussing Chinese art cinema (from the 1980s to present) and various generations of Chinese filmmakers.
