Research Interests

• The rights of Indigenous Peoples
• Contemporary Indigenous Religious Traditions and Philosophy
• Religious Freedom
• Religion and the law
• Religion and politics
• Religion in Canada
• Secularization

Creative Activities

In the Academy

• Committee Member, Status of Persons With Disabilities in the Profession at the American Academy of Religion
• Steering Committee, Law, Religion and Culture Group at the American Academy of Religion

Activities in Teaching and Learning

• Diversity Track, Faculty Development Conference, Summer 2017
• Faculty Fellow, Writing Across the Curriculum, Spring 2017
• Engaged Learning, Faculty Development Cohort, Spring 2017
• Presenter, Faculty Development Conference, Winter 2016
• Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Faculty Development Cohort, SFall 2016
• Diversity Track, Faculty Development Conference, Summer 2016
• Active Learning, Course Innovation Project Cohort, Spring 2016
• Participant, IDL6543, Online Teaching Instruction and Development, Spring 2016
• Presenter, Faculty Development Conference, Winter 2016

Publications

Books

• Shrubsole, N. What Has no Place Remains: The Challenges for Indigenous Religious Freedom in Canada Today. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Articles/Essays

• Shrubsole, N. Raising Indigenous Religious Freedom to a Higher Standard: Michael McNally’s Defend the Sacred and the Canadian Legal and Legislative Landscapes. Journal of Law and Religion 37(1) 2022, pp. 182-90
• Shrubsole, Nicholas. "The Network of Relationships in Law and Religion." Political Theology Network. The Law, Religion, and Paradoxes of Sovereignty Symposium with Dana Lloyd, Spencer Dew, and Méadhbh 
  McIvor. 8 December 2020, https://politicaltheology.com/the-network-of-relationships-in-law-and-religion/.

• Melody Bowden et al. General Education, Open Educational Resources, and Faculty Development in Crisis: What We Did Last Summer. Journal of Faculty Development 34(3) 2020: 47-51.

• Shrubsole, N. The Impossibility of Indigenous Religious Freedom. Policy Options (Institute for Research on Public Policy, 13 Nov 2017), http://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/november-2017/the-impossibility-of-indigenous-religious-free.... 
  

• Shrubsole, Nicholas. Secularization, Dispossession, and Forced Deprivatization: The Conditions of Public Religion and the Protection of First Nations’ Sacred Space. Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses. 45(3) 2016: 335 –359. (PR)

• Shrubsole, Nicholas. Denying and Limiting Religious Freedom: Ktunaxa Nation v. British Columbia, 2015. The Ecumenist 52(4), 15.

• Shrubsole, Nicholas. The Decision in Ktunaxa Nation v. British Columbia, 2014: Theology in the Courts and Indigenous Religious Freedom. The Ecumenist 51(4) 2014: 8–13.

• Shrubsole, Nicholas. The Sun Dance and the Gustafsen Lake Standoff: Healing Through Resistance and the Danger of Dismissing Religion. International Indigenous Policy Journal 2(4), October 2011. 

Book Sections/Chapters

• Shrubsole, Nicholas and P. Whitney Lackenbauer. The Gustafsen Lake Standoff. In Blockades or Breakthroughs? Aboriginal Peoples Confront the Canadian State, 1970-2007, eds., Yale Belanger and P. Whitney Lackenbauer. Montreal-Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 314–355.

Book Reviews

• Michael McNally. Defend the Sacred: Native American Religious Freedom Beyond the First Amendment (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020). Religious Studies Review 47(1) 2021:84-85.

   

• Paul Christopher Johnson, Pamela E. Klassen, and Winnifred Fallers Sullivan. Ekklesia: Three Inquiries in Church and State (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018). Journal of Law and Religion 35(2) 2020: 345-48.

• Tom Bailey and Valentina Gentile, eds. Rawls and Religion (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014). Journal of Church and State  58(3) 2016: 560-562.

Conference Papers/Presentations

• Raising Indigenous Religious Freedom to a Higher Standard: Michael McNally’s Defend the Sacred and the Canadian Legal and Legislative Landscapes. American Academy of Religion annual meeting. San Antonio, TX. November 2021.
• Shrubsole, N.  Canada’s Proposed Impact Assessment Act and Indigenous Religious Freedom. American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, Denver, CO. (November 2018).
• Shrubsole, N. Incommensurability and the Challenge for Indigenous Religious Freedom Claims. American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting. Boston, MA, November 2017.

• Shrubsole, N. "Setting Precedent on Indigenous Religious Freedom in Canada: The Ktunaxa Nation Supreme Court Decision." Native American and Indigenous Studies Association Annual Meeting, Vancouver, British Columbia, June 2017.
• Shrubsole, N. "Skiing in the Presence of the Kachina and Kⱡawⱡa Tukⱡuⱡakʔis: A Comparative Assessment of the Treatment of Navajo-Hopi and Ktunaxa Religious Freedom Claims." Canadian Society for the Study of Religion Annual Meeting, Toronto, Ontario, May 2017.
• Panelist. Precarious Lives: Economy, Identity, and Luck in Contemporary Academia. American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting. San Antonio, TX, November 2016.

• Shrubsole, N. The End of Indigenous Religious Freedom in Canada? The Ktunaxa Nation Defeat in the British Columbia Court of Appeals (2015). Native American and Indigenous Studies Association Annual Meeting, Honolulu, HI, May 2016.

• Shrubsole, N. Ktunaxa Nation v. British Columbia, 2014: Theological Exclusivity and Indigenous Religious Freedom. Native American and Indigenous Studies Association Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, June 2015.

• Shrubsole, N. ‘Religions Plus:’ Constitutional Contradictions and an Argument for the Special Protection of Indigenous Religious Freedom in Canada. American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting. San Diego, CA, November 2014.

• Shrubsole, N. Religion, Recognition and Consultation in Kelly Lake Cree Nation v. British Columbia. Indigenous Studies Summer Program Participants’ Panel, Columbia University, June 2014.

• Shrubsole, N. and K. Green. “Please Resist, It May Be All There Is”: The Secularization Debate in the Punk Rock Subculture. Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences/Canadian Society for the Study of Religion, St. Catherine’s, ON, June 2014.

• Shrubsole, N. First Nations Sacred Sites and Section 2(a): Cases from British Columbia and the Challenge of Natural Physical Space for Religious Freedom in a Liberal Democratic Canada. Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences/Canadian Society for the Study of Religion, Victoria, BC, June 2013.

• Shrubsole, N. Sacred Sites and Religious Rights: Indigenous Religious Freedom and Sacred Sites in the Secular Canadian State. Public Presentation, St. Paul’s University College in the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, March 2013

• Shrubsole, N. Property, Religion, and the Legal Relationship between Indigenous Peoples and the Canadian State: Historical Roots and Contemporary Issues, American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA, November 2011.

• Shrubsole, N. The Sun Dance and Violent Resistance: Healing through Political Action at Gustafsen Lake and Wounded Knee, Religion and Public Life Conference, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON, February 2011.

• Shrubsole, N. Mining for Nickel in Sacred Space: the Innu and Voisey’s Bay, Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences/Canadian Society for the Study of Religion, Montreal, PQ, June 2010.

• Shrubsole, N. Panellist for ‘Aboriginal Peoples, Religion, and Public Dialogue in Canada,’ American Academy of Religion Eastern International Regional Meeting, Ottawa, ON, May 2010

• Shrubsole, N. The Limits of the Deliberative Democratic Process: Negotiating First Nations’ Sacred Space, American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, Montreal PQ, November 2009.

• Shrubsole, N. Forced “Deprivatization” and the Public Conditions of Religion: First Nations Sacred Sites in Canada’s Courts, American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, Montreal PQ, November 2009

Invited Lectures/Presentations

• Considering What Has No Place, Indigenous Religious Freedom, and the Implementation of the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act. Canadian Society for the Study of Religion Winter Webinar series, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rr9fMMhP9D4&t=617s. 

Miscellaneous Publications

• Shrubsole, N. Reflection, Agency and Active Learning. In Faculty Focus 15(1) 2016: 8-9.

• Seljak, David, Joanne Benham Rennick, and Nicholas Shrubsole. Christianity and Citizenship. In Religion and Citizenship in Canada: Issues, Challenges, and Opportunities, ed. Paul Bramadat, 14-54. Report prepared for Citizenship and Immigration Canada by the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society, University of Victoria. Submitted March 2011.

Awards

2019 Canadian Society for the Study of Religion Book Prize for What Has No Place, Remains: The Challenges for Indigenous Religious Freedom in Canada Today (University of Toronto Press).

UCF-Teaching Incentive Program Award, 2020

Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award, College of Arts and Humanities, University of Central Florida, 2020

Courses

• Fall 2025
• Spring 2026