KAMRAN ASDAR ALI completed his medical degree in 1987 and, later, moved on to study anthropology at Johns Hopkins University where he earned his Ph.D. in 1997. He is now an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology, University of Texas, Austin. This year he is a Visiting Fellow at the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (ISIM), Leiden. He is the author of Planning the Family in Egypt: New Bodies, New Selves (2002).