About Blair Hodges

I am host, producer, and editor of Fireside with Blair Hodges. I earned a bachelor’s degree in communications (journalism) at the University of Utah and a master’s degree in religious studies at Georgetown University. I'm former host of the Maxwell Institute Podcast at Brigham Young University. I currently serve as director of marketing and communications for Volunteers of America, Utah, a nonprofit focusing on homelessness, mental illness, and addiction. I enjoy reading, family time, weekend napping, the Utah Jazz, and living in Salt Lake City. My interests are very wide.

Blair Hodges hosted and produced the Maxwell Institute Podcast for eight years before going independent with his current show, Fireside with Blair Hodges. It features interviews with writers, scholars, social justice advocates, and artists talking about culture, faith, memory, and more.

Blair's website

NBN Episodes hosted by Blair:

Richard L. Bushman, "Joseph Smith's Gold Plates: A Cultural History" (Oxford UP, 2023)

January 25, 2024

Joseph Smith's Gold Plates

Richard L. Bushman
Hosted by Blair Hodges

Renowned historian of Mormonism Richard Lyman Bushman's latest book presents a vibrant history of a sacred object that gave birth to a new religion: t…

Matthew Remski et al., "Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Public Health Threat" (PublicAffairs, 2023)

May 21, 2023

Conspirituality

Derek Beres, Matthew Remski, and Julian Walker
Hosted by Blair Hodges

Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Public Health Threat (PublicAffairs, 2023) is a much-needed analysis of wellness, new age, a…

Deidre Nicole Green, "Works of Love in a World of Violence: Feminism, Kierkegaard, and the Limits of Self-Sacrifice" (Mohr Siebeck, 2016)

April 21, 2023

Works of Love in a World of Violence

Deidre Nicole Green
Hosted by Blair Hodges

Today I talked to Deidre Nicole Green about her book Works of Love in a World of Violence: Feminism, Kierkegaard, and the Limits of Self-Sacrifice (Mo…

Benjamin E. Park, "Kingdom of Nauvoo: The Rise and Fall of a Religious Empire on the American Frontier" (Liveright, 2020)

April 20, 2023

Kingdom of Nauvoo

Benjamin E. Park
Hosted by Blair Hodges

Compared to the Puritans, Mormons have rarely gotten their due, treated as fringe cultists at best or marginalized as polygamists unworthy of serious …

Deidre Nicole Green, "Jacob: A Brief Theological Introduction" (Neal A. Maxwell Institute, 2020)

April 19, 2023

Jacob

Deidre Nicole Green
Hosted by Blair Hodges

"What could I have done more for my vineyard?" In one of the Book of Mormon's most magisterial passages, the lord of a vineyard looks over his beloved…

Benjamin E. Park, "American Nationalisms: Imagining Union in the Age of Revolutions, 1783-1833" (Cambridge UP, 2018)

April 18, 2023

American Nationalisms

Benjamin E. Park
Hosted by Blair Hodges

America was born in an age of political revolution throughout the Atlantic world, a period when the very definition of 'nation' was transforming. Benj…

Jason Olson and James Goldberg, "The Burning Book" (By Common Consent Press, 2022)

February 6, 2023

The Burning Book

Jason Olson and James Goldberg
Hosted by Blair Hodges

The Burning Book (By Common Consent Press, 2022) is an unusual and intriguing memoir about Jason Olsen's conversion from Judaism to Mormonism. But it …