Gary Laderman is the Professor of American Religious History and Cultures at Emory University. He received his B.A. in psychology from California State University, Northridge, and his M.A. and Ph. D. from the Religious Studies Department, University of California, Santa Barbara. He also spent a year in Paris, France, as a graduate student, studying at the Center for Critical Studies and the Sorbonne. Laderman’s courses and seminars include U.S. Religious History; Mind, Medicine, and Healing; Death and Dying; Theory and Method; Introduction to Religion; Native American Religions; Health and Healing; and American Religious Cultures. Gary Laderman is the author of Sacred Matters: Celebrity Worship, Sexual Ecstasies, the Living Dead, and Other Signs of Religious Life in the United States. He is also the author of two books on death in America: The Sacred Remains: American Attitudes Toward Death, 1799-1883 and Rest in Peace: A Cultural History of Death and the Funeral Home in Twentieth-Century America. He also has co-edited two encyclopedias, Religion and American Cultures: An Encyclopedia of Traditions, Diversity, and Popular Expressions, and Science, Religion, Societies: Histories, Cultures, Controversies.