Matt Harris Ph.D.

Dr. Matt Harris is a specialist in US history with a particular focus in religion and the law, church and state, American religious history, civil rights, and Mormon Studies. He received a BA and MA in history from Brigham Young University and an MPhil and PhD, also in history, from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. He is the author of numerous books and articles, including The Mormon Church and Blacks: A Documentary History (Univ. of Illinois Press, 2015), Thunder on the Right: Ezra Taft Benson in Mormonism and Politics (Univ. of Illinois Press, 2019), “Watchman on the Tower”: Ezra Taft Benson and the Making of the Mormon Right (Univ. of Utah Press, 2019) and (with Newell G. Bringhurst) The Mormon Church and its Gospel Topics Essays: The Scholarly Community Responds (Univ. of Utah Press, 2019). He is currently at work on three book-length manuscripts: “The Long Awaited Day”: Blacks, Mormons, and the Lifting of the Priesthood and Temple Ban, 1945-2018; J. Reuben Clark and the Making of Modern Mormonism (Univ. of Illinois Press); and Hugh B. Brown: Mormonism’s Progressive Apostle (Signature Books). His article “Mormonism’s Problematic Racial Past and the Evolution of the Divine-Curse Doctrine,” published in The John Whitmer Historical Society Journal, won the Vera Jean and J. Talmage Jones Award from the Mormon History Association in 2014. His work has been featured on CSPAN and various social media outlets.

Dr. Harris teaches a broad array of courses at CSU-Pueblo, including Religion and Politics, American Religious History, Origins of the Constitution, Early America, Civil Rights, and the Civil War. During his tenure at CSU-Pueblo, he has won several university-wide awards, including the Provost’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, the Students’ Choice Award and the Provost’s Award for Scholarly and Creative Activity.

Dr. Harris served as the chair of the history department from 2010-2013 and director of the graduate program in history from 2009-2016. He currently directs the Legal Studies program at CSU-Pueblo.