Milica Bakic-Hayden is Lecturer Emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh, where she has taught for the past twenty-five years, first at the Slavic Department and from 1997 to 2018 at the Department of Religious Studies. She obtained her BA and MA degrees from the University of Belgrade and her PhD from the University of Chicago. Geographic areas of academic interest include the Balkans and South Asia. Special topics of study and research include Indian religions, the philosophy and theory of art, Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Balkan cultures and society, comparative mysticism, monasticism, and sainthood.