Charles G. Häberl, Ph.D., is Professor of Religion and African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Languages and Literatures (AMESALL). He is also affiliated with the Jewish Studies Department and the programs in Global Medieval Studies and Middle Eastern Studies at the Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences, New Brunswick. He was born and raised in New Jersey, and received his Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University. His research focuses upon the languages, faiths, and histories of minority populations in the Middle East, primarily those from Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran, with whom he has conducted extensive fieldwork. In addition to teaching Arabic and Aramaic language courses, he also teaches courses on literature from the region (including the Bible and biblical literature), and on the impending extinction of many of the world's spoken languages.