Dr. István Povedák (Research Group for the Study of Religious Culture, Hungarian Academy of Sciences and University of Szeged, Senior Research Fellow). His main fields of research are contemporary vernacular religiosity, modern mythologies and the cult of heroes and celebrities. His books include Pseudo Heroes and Fake Gods? (in Hungarian), Heroes and Celebrities in Central Eastern Europe;  Landscape as a Factor for Creating Identity (co-edited with Wojciech Bedinsky), Not even the Past is what it used to be. The Multidisciplinary Analysis of New Hungarian Mythologies (co-edited in Hungarian with László Hubbes)  and Shamans Everywhere. The Multidisciplinary Analysis of Contemporary Paganism (co-edited in Hungarian with Réka Szilárdi)  He has been the chair of the SIEF Ethnology of Religion Working Group, the MAKAT Research Group for Contemporary Mythology and the vice-president of the Hungarian Cultural Anthropology Association (MAKAT). He has been a lecturer at the University of Freiburg (Germany), University of Latvia (Riga, Latvia), Cabrini College (Pennsylvania) and received Fulbright Scholarship to the Ohio State University.