Samuel Nelson

Samuel Nelson is an Assistant Professor at the School of Religious Studies, McGill University. He holds a B.A. from the University of Chicago, an MA, and a Ph.D. in Sociology from Yale University (completed in 2013). His research focuses on secularization, religious change, and the intersection of religion with politics, law, and colonial state-formation, particularly in European empires and early Protestant missions. He previously conducted postdoctoral research at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity (MPI-MMG).

His current work includes a monograph, Organizing the Global Millennium, examining the imperial and missionary dimensions of 18th-century evangelical Protestantism. He teaches courses on varieties of religious experience, religion and globalization, religion and politics, and methods in religious studies.

Nelson supervises graduate students in historical sociology of religion, comparative secularization, and religion’s role in public life. His research emphasizes the dynamics of ethno-religious diversity in colonial contexts and the evolution of religious organizations amid modernity.