2025-2026 Mormon Studies Fellowship

Nicholas Shrum

Nicholas Shrum, Religious Studies doctoral student at the University of Virginia, has been selected as the 2025-2026 Mormon Studies Fellow. The Graduate Research Fellowship in Mormon Studies is the first of its kind in the nation, and provides one year of funding for doctoral students to research the history, beliefs, and culture of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, its members, or any religious group that traces its roots to Joseph Smith, Jr.

The committee, chaired by W. Paul Reeve, Simmons Professor of Mormon Studies, selected Shrum’s application through a competitive process. “The Mormon Studies Initiative at the University of Utah is excited to welcome Nicholas Shrum to campus in the fall. His strong publication record and the comparative nature of his research project attracted the selection committee’s attention,” says Reeve. “We are eager to learn what he has to teach us about the intersections between religious beliefs and U.S. national identity in the post-World War II era.”

Shrum’s project, titled “Alternative Zions: American Jewish, Mormon, and Black Visions of Sacred Nations, States, and Geographies, 1948-1980," examines how American Jews, American Mormons, and Black American Protestants conceptualized sacred spaces, nations, and states during the postwar period. The study analyzes “theologies of the American state,” exploring how each group's religious beliefs intersected with their national identity and America’s role in their eschatological and cosmological worldviews. It further investigates how these groups constructed and interpreted sacred geographies, and challenges assumptions about religious nationalism as solely white and evangelical Christian.

“I am so excited to have been awarded the Graduate Research Fellowship in Mormon Studies," says Shrum. "I’m grateful to the selection committee for their support of my project, and I am excited to join the Tanner Humanities Center and Mormon Studies Initiative communities at the University of Utah. I’m honored to follow other Mormon Studies fellows from previous years whose scholarship I respect.”

During Shrum’s tenure as the Mormon Studies Fellow, he will conduct research as well as deliver a talk about work-in-progress at the Tanner Humanities Center. Please join us in congratulating Shrum on this honor, and welcoming him to the College of Humanities intellectual community.