Hanson's research interrogates the intersections of religious pluralism and ethnic immigration in American history. Currently, Hanson is working on a manuscript version of his dissertation, "City of Gods: Religious Freedom, Immigration and Pluralism in Flushing, Queens-New York City, 1945-2000."

This book-length study traces Flushing's evolution from its colonial history of religious freedom and tolerance to the contemporary emergence of intolerant nativism in the face of immigration. From his deep understanding of the neighborhood, Hanson derives a model of religious pluralism that does not hover in abstraction, but is based in the real world of everyday lives over time. In other words, Hanson creates a sociocultural history and ethnography in which people and groups are not depicted as fixed or isolated, but as dynamic and interacting agents in a complex and constantly changing world of local, national, and transnational dimensions. Hanson believes that his study of Flushing as an ethnically diverse and religiously pluralistic area is particularly significant as it is a neighborhood that could be considered a microcosm of the nation.