Michael Mann studied South Asian history, medieval and modern history, indology, and German studies at the University of Heidelberg, where he obtained his doctorate from the Philosophy and History Faculty with a doctoral thesis on the agricultural and environmental history of northern India. Since 2010, he has been Professor of South Asian History and Society at the Humboldt University of Berlin. He prefers to work on an interdisciplinary basis, with specializations in economic and social history, environmental history, as well as the history of cities and urbanization. His interests extend beyond the South Asian subcontinent to the Indian Ocean and its neighboring regions. Migration, diaspora, and particularly the slave trade and slavery, which are also the subjects of his 2012 book Sahibs, Sklaven und Soldaten. Geschichte des Menschenhandels rund um den Indischen Ozean [Sahibs, Slaves, and Soldiers. The History of Human Trafficking Around the Indian Ocean] (von Zabern), form his main focus area.Ineke Phaf-Rheinberger (Dr.) is an independent researcher and works at the Institute of African and Asian Studies at the Humboldt University of Berlin. Her research interests include Latin American, Caribbean, and African literature. She studied in the Netherlands and in Berlin. Phaf-Rheinberger worked as a professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Maryland, College Park and as a visiting professor in various other countries. The book Beyond the Line (2014), coedited with Michael Mann, is part of her research on oceanic modernity in Latin American and African literature. As her first step in this field, she edited the book Historias enredadas. Representaciones asimétricas con vista al Atlántico (edición tranvía 2011).