Dr. John Clammer is Adviser to the Rector and Director of International Courses at the United Nations University, Tokyo. Previously he was Professor of Comparative Sociology and Graduate Professor of Asian Studies at Sophia University, Tokyo and he has been a visiting professor at universities in England, Australia, Germany, Korea, Japan, Singapore and Argentina. He has published extensively in the fields of cultural sociology, development sociology and the sociology of religion, with a focus on Japan and Southeast Asia and has an ongoing interest in the dialogue between social theory and Asian realities.