David Hurlbut

David (Dima) Hurlbut was previously a Graduate Research Fellow in Mormon Studies at the Tanner Humanities Center at the University of Utah, and a visiting scholar in the Department of Linguistics at Nnamdi Azikiwe University in Awka, Anambra State, Nigeria.

Hurlbut earned both his Ph.D. and M.A. in history from Boston University, where he was a Title VI Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellow. He received my B.A. from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon.

Hurlbut’s research broadly focuses on religious encounters in Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly religious conversion and the expansion of American mission churches in the postcolonial period. He is  currently completing a series of articles about the expansion of both the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Community of Christ (known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints until 2001) into southeastern Nigeria in the postcolonial period.

Hurlbut’s scholarship has appeared in the International Journal of African Historical Studies, the John Whitmer Historical Association Journal, the Journal of Mormon History, and Religions , and received two awards from the Mormon History Association and an award from the John Whitmer Historical Association. These articles have been taught in history and religion courses at institutions such as the University of Utah and Whitman College.

He is a lead book review editor for H-Africa, and the former managing editor of the African Conflict and Peacebuilding Review.