Amer Latif is an interdisciplinary scholar specializing in comparative religion and Islamic studies. He is particularly interested in the role of poetry, music, and ritual in religious practice.  He has published translations of the poetry of Jalaluddin Rumi, the thirteenth century Muslim saint, and is a student of the ney, the traditional reed flute associated with Rumi and the Whirling Dervishes.  Having grown up in Pakistan and with an undergraduate degree in physics, Amer thrives on studying and creating containers that are capacious enough to hold seeming contradictions such as science and religion, East and West, scholar and practitioner. Amer holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Studies from Stony Brook University and is Associate Professor of religious studies at the Marlboro Institute for Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies at Emerson College.