Hovan Lawton
Ph.D. Student
Advisor
Dr. Felipe Hinojosa
Education
M.A. in History, Utah State University, 2023
B.A. in History, Magna Cum Laude, Brigham Young University, 2021
Research Interests
My research focuses on twentieth-century Latin American religious and political history. I specifically study the experiences of Latin American minority religious communities during the Cold War era, especially those with actual or perceived connections to the U.S. (such as Latter-day Saints, Evangelicals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Seventh-day Adventists). These were churches that were often perceived as foreign or even as tools of the CIA by many members of the Catholic majority. I am interested in how local Latin American converts to these faiths navigated their relationship with both the wider regional culture as well as the U.S. religious establishments they interacted with.
Selected Activities
Awards/Fellowships
- Best Thesis Award, Mormon History Association, 2024
- Leonard J. Arrington Fellowship, Utah State University, 2021–2023
- History Department Valedictorian, Brigham Young University, 2021
- Eugene E. Campbell Student Paper Award in Utah History, Brigham Young University, 2021
- Brigham Young Scholarship, Brigham Young University, 2016–2020