About the AuthorKimberley C Patton is Professor of the Comparative and Historical Study of Religion at Harvard University. Her book Religion of the Gods: Ritual, Paradox and Reflexivity (2009) won the 2010 American Academy of Religion Book Award for Excellence in Religious Studies in the Analytical-Descriptive category. She has likewise authored The Sea Can Wash Away All Evils: Modern Marine Pollution and the Ancient Cathartic Ocean (2006) and is the co-editor of three other volumes.