“At a time when discussions of the relationship between academics and their publics are more often reduced to utilitarian meditations on ‘impact’ and ‘research excellence’, Who Owns Religion? is a welcome antidote: a rich, timely and dynamic exploration of the uncharted spaces between.”

Times Higher Education

“Who Owns Religion? boldly identifies and deftly navigates the complex ‘eruptive public space’ that arises when scholars of religion and their multiple publics collide. Patton presents a grounded understanding of particular controversies across multiple traditions, and provides a searching analysis of the larger question of whether religion can be theorized at all without concomitant theorization of the university, the non-academic institution, and the public sphere. Patton’s constructive pathways across this entanglement make this deeply reflexive and well-written study powerfully relevant to any discipline that claims a public face.”

Leela Prasad, Duke University

“Since its origins in the nineteenth century, the academic study of religion has mostly operated independently of the world of religious adherents. This changed in the late twentieth century, leaving scholars reeling from the intensity of the opprobrium to which their work was subjected. Patton explains the cultural and historical forces that led to the conflict, and, importantly, how we can move beyond the impasse. Filled with insights, Who Owns Religion? is a must read for anyone interested in the study of religion at the turn of the millennium.”

José Ignacio Cabezón, University of California, Santa Barbara

"Who Owns Religion?: Scholars and Their Publics in the Late Twentieth Century First Edition analyzes the public controversies occasioned by scholarly work in religious studies in the 1980s and 1990s. . . . Patton, who in addition to being an eminent scholar of South Asian religions has been president of the American Academy of Religion, dean at a major research university, and is currently president of an elite liberal arts college, is well positioned to make a major contribution to theorizing these institutions. The terrain of the academic study of religion and of the academy in our [s]ociety is shifting again—I would advocate for an ongoing series by Patton. Who owns the academy, and who owns religion in 2021?"

Reading Religion