Mark A. E. Williams (PhD, Louisiana State University) is a past president of the Religious Communication Association and a professor of rhetoric in the Communication Studies Department of California State University, Sacramento, where he teaches both graduate and undergraduate courses in communication and religion, rhetorical criticism, and the history of rhetoric with an emphasis on the premodern era. He is a former Research Fellow of both Oxford University and the École Biblique et Archéologique de Jérusalem. Left to his own devices, he will indulge his Tolkien addiction, bind books by hand, write just for fun, and think about things. He is married to a scientist who keeps him grounded. They have two adult children.