J. Barton Scott

Biography:

J. Barton Scott researches the global intellectual and cultural history of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with a focus on South Asia and its transnational connections. He teaches courses on social and cultural theory, religion in political thought, and media and material religion. He is the author of Spiritual Despots: Modern Hinduism and the Genealogies of Self-Rule (University of Chicago/Primus; Honourable Mention for the 2018 Harry Levin Prize from the American Comparative Literature Association) and Slandering the Sacred: Blasphemy Law and Religious Affect in Colonial India (University of Chicago/Permanent Black/ Folio Books), and the co-editor of Imagining the Public in Modern South Asia (Routledge). His writing can be found in Marginalia, The Revealer, Comparative Studies of Society and History, Modern Intellectual History, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, and elsewhere. Recent work includes an Immanent Frame forum co-edited with Pamela Klassen about religion and AI, with introductory essay “Digital Intervention: Why Critical AI Studies Needs the Study of Religion.”

Scott is currently working on two books. The first is about guru culture in southern California in the years around World War II. The second, a collaborative project, is about the powers of the image in South Asian religions.

Education:

Ph.D. (Duke University)
B.A. (Swarthmore College)

Publications
Books:

• Slandering the Sacred: Blasphemy Law and Religious Affect in Colonial India (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2023; Delhi: Permanent Black, 2023; Lahore: Folio Books, 2025).
• Spiritual Despots: Modern Hinduism and the Genealogies of Self-Rule (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016; Delhi: Primus Books, 2017).
  • Honorable Mention for the American Comparative Literature Association's Harry Levin Prize for an Outstanding First Book.
• Imagining the Public in Modern South Asia. Co-edited with Brannon Ingram and SherAli Tareen (London: Routledge, 2016, from a special issue of South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies).

Articles and Book Chapters:

• “Heterodoxies of the Body: Death, Secularism, and the Corpse of Raja Rammohun Roy,” Comparative Studies of Society and History 66.4 (2024): 729–59.
• “Is Anglicanism a Religion?: Empire, Establishmentarianism, and Macaulay’s Critique of Gladstone,” Special issue on “Transimperial Religion,” eds. Sebastian Lecourt and Winter Jade Werner. Victorian Studies 66.2 (2024): 255–70.
• “Insulting Religion: Penal Secularism and the Government of Feeling,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 91, no. 1 (2023): 35–50.
• “Translated Liberties: Karsandas Mulji’s Travels in England and the Anthropology of the Victorian Self,” Modern Intellectual History 16, no. 3 (2019): 803–833.
• “A Commonwealth of Affection: Modern Hinduism and the Cultural History of the Study of Religion.” In Constructing Nineteenth Century Religion, eds. (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2019).
• “Only Connect: Three Reflections on the Sociality of Secularism,” Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry 6, no. 1 (2019): 48–69.
• “How to Defame a God: Public Selfhood in the Maharaj Libel Case,” in Imagining the Public in Modern South Asia, eds. Brannon Ingram, J. Barton Scott, and SherAli Tareen, special issue of South Asia: The Journal of South Asian Studies 38 no. 3 (2015): 387–402.
• “What is a Public? Notes from South Asia” (co-authored with Brannon Ingram), in Imagining the Public in Modern South Asia, eds. Brannon Ingram, J. Barton Scott, and SherAli Tareen, special issue of South Asia: The Journal of South Asian Studies 38 no. 3 (2015): 357–370.
• “Aryas Unbound: Print Hinduism and the Cultural Regulation of Religious Offense,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East 35, no. 2 (2015): 294–309.
• “Luther in the Tropics: Karsandas Mulji and the Colonial ‘Reformation’ of Hinduism,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 83, no. 1 (2015): 181–209.
• “Unsaintly Virtue: Swami Dayananda Saraswati and Modern Hindu Hagiography,” Journal of Hindu Studies 7, no. 3 (2014): 371–391.
• “Comic Book Karma: Visual Mythologies of the Hindu Modern,” in Inscriptions, eds. Jeremy Stolow and Lisa Gitelman, special issue of Postscripts: The Journal of Sacred Texts and Contemporary Worlds 4, no. 2 (2010): 177–197.
• “Miracle Publics: Theosophy, Christianity, and the Coulomb Affair,” History of Religions 49, no. 2 (2009): 172–196.

Select Culture Criticism and Public Writing:

• (with Pamela Klassen) “Digital Intervention: Why Critical AI Studies Needs the Study of Religion,” in Pamela Klassen and J. Barton Scott, ed. “Seeking Alignment: Religion, AI, and Digital Intervention” (with Suzanne van Geuns, Anna Su, Ishtiaque Ahmed, Sarah Sharma, and John Lardas Modern) in The Immanent Frame. 29 July 2026.
• “The Secular History of Religious Feelings: A Response.” Forum on J. Barton Scott’s Slandering the Sacred, with Arvind-Pal Mandair, Tisa Wenger, Deonnie Moodie, Marko Geslani, and Anand Vivek Taneja. Marginalia Review of Books, September 2024.
• Review of Heretic, (dir. Scott Black and Brian Woods.” Journal of Religion & Film 28 (2), Article 19, October 2024.
• “The Surprising History of Global Blasphemy Law,” The Immanent Frame, April 2024.
• Review of Lost Ladies (dir. Kiran Rao, 2023), Journal of Religion & Film 27, no. 2, October 2023.
• Review of Kill (dir. Nikhil Nagesh Bhat, 2023), Journal of Religion & Film 27, no. 2, October 2023.
• Podcast Interview with Raj Balkaran, New Books Network, June 2023.
• “Religion in Lovecraft Country,” The Revealer, February 2021.
• “Mucho Mucho Amor, Mucho Mucho Religion,” The Revealer, October 2020.

Specialization:

• Global South Asia
• Religion, Empire, and Anticolonialism
• Secularism
• Religion and Law
• Media and Popular Culture
• History of Study of Religion