Zac Smith began teaching at Samford University in Fall 2013 in the Core Curriculum and has taught in the Fellows Program since 2018. A native of Indiana, he remained in-state to attend Purdue University, where he received his B.A. in psychology. After briefly considering a future as a clinical psychologist, he relocated to Athens, GA, where in 2012 he earned his Ph.D. in history at the University of Georgia.

Zac’s research has centered on the First World War, race, identity, and the obligations of citizenship. He has published articles on these topics in the Journal of Southern History and the Washington Post. In his first book, Age of Fear: Othering and American Identity during World War I (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019), he explores the manner in which concerns about an increasingly diverse society led many Americans between 1914 and 1918 to reimagine their German enemy as a non-white and existential threat to American democracy. He is also the co-author of a Reacting to the Past historical role-immersion game on the 1912 presidential election. His next research project will explore the United States’ entry into World War I from a cultural and social perspective.

For the Fellows Program, he has taught Writing and Rhetoric as well as Western Intellectual Tradition III and IV.