Ferdinando Sardella is a researcher and the Director for the Forum for South Asia Studies for the Humanities and Social Sciences at Uppsala University. He is a fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. In 2010 he received the Donner Institute Prize for outstanding research in the field of Religious Studies at the Åbo Akademi University in Finland.

"Modern Hindu Personalism is a significant contribution to scholarship not only of the modern Gaudiya Vaisnava movement but also of the religious history of Bengal within the last half of the colonial period. Adding greatly to our understanding of the development of Hinduism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the context of colonialism and a rising Indian nationalism, this book should be widely read by scholars of the history of colonial India and religion."--Gavin Flood, Professor of Hindu Studies and Comparative Religion, University of Oxford

"Timothy S. Dobe's innovative approach successfully incorporates bodily practice, ascetic performance, and a detailed understanding of context into his comparative textual study. By highlighting the multiple functions of sainthood in religious and social contexts and across religious traditions, Hindu Christian Faqir contributes to a broader approach to comparative study and more nuanced understanding of colonial religion."--Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies