Nicholas Shrum

Education

• University of Virginia: Ph.D. in Religious Studies (anticipated 2028)

  • Graduate Certificate in American Studies

• Yale Divinity School: M.A.R., History of Christianity (2022)

• Brigham Young University: BA, American Studies 

Dissertation

My dissertation, “Alternative Zions: American Jewish, Mormon, and Black Visions of Sacred Nations, States, and Geographies, 1945–1976,” is a comparative study that examines how these minority religious groups considered their belonging in the postwar United States. Postwar American religious nationalism is traditionally understood as an exclusively white, evangelical phenomenon, captured in the contemporary term “White Christian Nationalism. Yet, my dissertation nuances this by extending our understanding of religion as a fundamentally nation and people-building project that encompasses a variety of ethnic, racial, and religious traditions that responded to the pressures of white American religious nationalism after World War II.

Research Interests

• American Religious History
• Mormon Studies
• American Studies
• Visual & Material Culture

Peer-Reviewed Publications

• "Materializing Faith and Politics: The Unseen Power of the NCCS Pocket Constitution in American Religion" Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, (Summer 2024), 41–83. 

• “Mormon American Nationalism and the Religio-Political Art of Jon McNaughton,” Journal of Mormon History, 50, no. 2 (Spring 2024), 43–77. 

• “‘I Walked Because I Wanted To:’ National and Religious Identities of Women and the Mormon Battalion,” Latter-day Saint Historical Studies 21, no. 2 (Fall 2020), 33–54. 

• “Painting Americanness into Existence: Trumbull’s Rotunda Paintings and American Identity,” Americana (BYU), (Winter 2019), 15–29.  

Reviews

• Review of Latter-day Saint Art: A Critical Reader, Amanda Beardsley and Mason Allred eds. in Mormon Studies Review 13 (2026): 151–155. 

• Review of Matthew L. Harris, Watchman on the Tower: Ezra Taft Benson and the Making of the Mormon Right, in Journal of Mormon History, forthcoming. 

Recent Academic Presentations

• “The Center Place of Zion: Postwar Mormonism and its Turn Back to Missouri,” Mormon History Association, Las Vegas, Nevada, June 2026.

• Graduate Student Presentation, Religion & American Culture Biennial Conference, Indianapolis, Indiana, June 2026. 

• “`Our Inspired Association with Israel’: Irene E. Staples, the State of Israel, and the Religious Diplomacy of Hosting,” Mormon History Association, Ogden, Utah, June 2025. 

• “Pure Revelations and Mormon-American Conspirituality,” Mormon History Association, Kirtland, Ohio, June 2024. 

• “Black Agency and 1960s Mormonism,” Mormon Studies Society Conference, Yale Divinity School, March 2, 2024. 

• “`The Lord Had it Fixed Up for Me to Become a Mormon:’ Carey C. Bowles’ Religious Citizenship within 1960s Mormonism,” Mormonism in Africa and the African Diaspora Conference, University of Virginia, October 14, 2023. 

• “A Latter-day Saint Exploration of Institutional Repentance for Anti-Black Racism,” Community & Critique Workshop, Forum on Religion and Democracy, University of Virginia, October 5, 2023.  

Public-Facing Work & Media Engagement

Podcast Host: Host of "Scholars and Saints,” the UVA Mormon Studies Podcast

Public Commentary

• “For 2 centuries, Latter-day Saints have revered religious freedom – but their definition is evolving” (co-authored with Benjamin Park), The Conversation (June 2026).
• Featured in Neda Ulaby, “Conservative Christians love this painting of George Washington. The event it depicts may not have happened,” NPR, May 27, 2026.
• “The Devout & Muscular Founding Father,” The Utah Monthly (August 2025). 
• “For many Latter-day Saints, America has a special relationship with God—but Christian nationalism is a step too far,” The Conversation (October 2024).

Academic Service

Nonfiction Book Review Editor, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Aug. 2025-Present.
 

Selected Honors and Scholarships

• Jan Shipps Best Article Award, Mormon History Association, June 2025.

• Juanita Brooks Best Unpublished Graduate Student Paper Award, Mormon History Association, June 2024.

• Mark J. Friedman Family Jewish Studies Graduate Fellow, University of Virginia, 2026–2027. 

• Fellow, Eugene England Summer Institute, June 2026.

• Bentley Historical Library Research Fellowship, University of Michigan, 2026–2027. 

• Mormon Studies Fellowship, Tanner Humanities Center, University of Utah, 2025-2026. 

Academic Awards and Grants

• “Best Unpublished Paper,” for “`The Lord Had it Fixed Up for Me to Become a Mormon:’ Carey C. Bowles’ Religious Citizenship within 1960s Mormonism.” Mormon History Association, June 2024.
• Domestic Young Scholar Research Grant, Church History Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, September 2023.

Teaching Experience

• Teaching Assistant-REL2650 Religion, Ethics, and Healthcare, University of Virginia, Spring 2024.
• Teaching Assistant-RELC1220 New Testament and Early Christianity, University of Virginia, Fall 2023.

Professional Experience

• LDS Church History Department Salt Lake City, UT and New Haven, CT. Sep. 2018–Jan 2023.  
  • Research Assistant and Contract Historian. Sep. 2018—Jan. 2023
  • Project Manager for The Diaries of Emmeline B. Wells. Jun. 2021–Dec. 2022 
  • Academic Intern for the Joseph Smith Papers. Jan. 2018–May 2018

Professional Memberships 

• Mormon History Association, 2018-Present.

• American Academy of Religion, 2026-Present.

• American Studies Association, 2026-Present.

• American Society of Church Historians, 2026-Present.