Faculty Profile for Dr. Joshua Allen Paddison

profile photo for Dr. Joshua Allen Paddison
Dr. Joshua Allen Paddison
Assoc Professor of Instruction — History
TMH 202
phone: (512) 245-2142

Biography Section

Biography and Education

Historian of religion, race, and North American Wests

Teaching Interests

U.S. History; world history; religion; race; American West; Civil War & Reconstruction

Selected Scholarly/Creative Work

  • Paddison, J. A. (2025). Unholy Sensations: A Story of Sex, Scandal, and California’s First Cult Scare. New York: Oxford University Press. Retrieved from https://global.oup.com/academic/product/unholy-sensations-9780197775325?cc=us&lang=en&
  • Paddison, J. A. (2019). The Mystery of Everything Out There: Bigfoot and Religion in the Twenty-First Century. In The Paranormal and Popular Culture: A Postmodern Religious Landscape (pp. 78–91). New York, United States: Routledge.
  • Paddison, J. A. (2016, December). New Directions in the History of Religion and Race. American Quarterly.
  • Paddison, J. A. (2015, October). Disorderly Doctrines: Religion, Race, and the Fountaingrove Sex Scandal of 1891-1892. Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.
  • Paddison, J. (2012). American Heathens: Religion, Race, and Reconstruction in California. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA, United Staes: University of California Press.

Selected Awards

  • Award / Honor Nominee: Presidential Awards for Excellence in Teaching (Senior Lecturer/Lecturer), Texas State University. 2024
  • Award / Honor Nominee: Presidential Awards for Excellence in Teaching (Senior Lecturer/Lecturer), Texas State University. 2020
  • Award / Honor Recipient: Faculty Excellence Award, Southwestern Ohio Council for Higher Education. 2015
  • Award / Honor Recipient: Provost’s Award for Outstanding Teaching, Wittenberg University. 2015
  • Award / Honor Nominee: Weber-Clements Prize for Best Non-Fiction Book on the Southwest, Western History Association. 2013

Selected Service Activities

Reviewer / Referee
Texas Tech University Press
March 2025-Present
Reviewer / Referee
Western Historical Quarterly
February 2025-Present
Reviewer / Referee
Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions
2024-Present
Reviewer / Referee
University of Nebraska Press
July 2024-Present
Undergraduate Advisor
Pickleballers at Texas State University
August 2023-December 2026