Federico Settler
President
Federico Settler is an Associate professor in sociology of religion from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, where he is also Academic Leader for Teaching and Learning in the School of Religion, Philosophy and Classics. He has held several prestigious research fellowships, and most recently was a visiting Professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology’s Centre for Interdisciplinary Study of Culture (2020) where he contributed to a series of courses on religion and racial diversity. He is an NRF-rated scholar and he serves on numerous editorial boards, nationally and internationally He has published widely on race, postcolonialism and migration, and its entanglements with religion. Prof Settler is the Editor of Culture and Religion (Routledge) and prestigious journal in the field of religious studies. His most recent publications reflect on race, decoloniality and the sociology of religion. He is the author of the forthcoming book Mundane Enchantments and Everyday Religion (Routledge, 2025)
Ala Alhourani
Vice-President
Dr Ala Alhourani is a senior lecturer in the Department for Study of Religions at the University of Cape Town. His PhD research is on the aesthetics of Islam and Muslim performances of citizenship, conviviality, and differences in South Africa’s post-apartheid secular state. His post-doctorate research explores the aesthetic of religion and everyday ethics in public life. His research foregrounds aesthetic experiences of religion as embodied ethics, knowledge, power, and traditions. His research interests are Islam in Africa, Sufism, anthropology of religion, political secularism, art and aesthetics.
Maria Frahm-Arp
Editor of the Journal for the Study of Religion
Prof Maria Frahm-Arp is the chairperson of ASRSA from 2017-2019. She works in the Department of Religion Studies at the University of Johannesburg. Her area of research interest is Pentecostal Charismatic Churches in South Africa and she has written on women (Professional Women in South African Pentecostal Churches. Brill 2010), development (Bompani, B & Frahm-Arp, M. (eds). Development and Religion from Below: Exploring Religious Spaces in the African State. Palgrave Macmillan 2010) and politics in these churches. She is also interested in Anglican Studies, particularly in South Africa and has supervised numerous postgraduate students studying in this field.
Beverly Vencatsamy
Secretary
Beverly Vencatsamy is currently employed as a Lecturer in Comparative Religion in the School of Religion, Philosophy & Classics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Her areas of research interest are gender, community engagement, and knowledge production. Her PhD focusses on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, with a special interest in Religious Studies. Ms. Vencatsamy has served as the editorial assistant and financial administrator for the journal Alternation: Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of the Arts and Humanities in Southern Africa from 2007 - 2019. She has subsequently moved on to Assistant Editor of Alternation. Ms. Vencatsamy has also served as the treasurer for Association for the Study of Religion in Southern Africa (ASRSA) from 2014 - 2019.
Anita Cloete
Executive Committee Member
Anita Cloete is a Full Professor in Practical Theology, lecturing for (21) years at Huguenot College in Wellington (5 years) and University of Stellenbosch (16 years) respectively. She was the head of the department (HOD) of Practical Theology & Missiology, 2014-2017 and the chair of the winter school committee for 5 years an annual event at the Faculty of Theology. She is a National Research Foundation (NRF) rated scholar. Currently she is the editor of the section practical theology in the Stellenbosch Theological Journal (STJ). Her research areas include Youth culture, Spiritual formation, Religion, and Media. She published and supervised several postgraduate students in these areas. In 2019 she edited a book with the title: Interdisciplinary reflections on the Interplay between Religion, Film and Youth.
Nelly Mwale
Executive Committee Member
Nelly Mwale (PhD) is a senior lecturer in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Zambia, and a Research fellow at the Research Institute for Theology and Religion at the University of South Africa. Her research interests are religion in the public sphere, religion and gender, church history, religion and education, and African Indigenous Knowledge. She has published widely in the above fields, and most recently she has written on Catholicism in Africa, and religious engagements with COVID-19.