J. Lorand Matory is an American academic and Lawrence Richardson Professor of Cultural Anthropology and African and African American Studies at Duke University.

He is the author of Sex and the Empire That Is No More: Gender and the Politics of Metaphor in Oyo Yoruba Religion (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press 1994; Second, Revised Edition, New York and London: Berghahn Books, 2005); and Black Atlantic Religion: Tradition, Transnationalism and Matriarchy in the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé (Princeton; Princeton University Press, 2005).

At one point, he criticized Larry Summers, then President of Harvard University, who called efforts by Matory and others to divest from Israel "anti-Semitic in effect, if not intent.

"[2] According to Matory, "the knee jerk accusation that targeted criticism of Israel singles out Israel is as absurd as stating that the anti-apartheid movement was singling out South Africa.

[4] Although Matory had tenure at Harvard, he complained about issues regarding his compensation and diversity at the faculty, and when he received the offer to come to Duke in 2008, Harvard made a counter-offer that Matory considered inadequate before he accepted Duke's offer and left in the fall to take up his new position.