It has now been two years since that fateful day at J-Dawgs in Provo, Utah, where a group of four BYU students collectively decided to start a blog devoted to the academic study of Mormon history. It’s been an enjoyable couple of years, and the JI has grown—both in terms of readership and in the number of bloggers. We have also spread out. No longer limited to Provo, only two of our bloggers remain year-round residents of the Beehive State (and they will each very likely be on their way out within the next year).[1]

We wanted to take the time, though, to re-introduce ourselves and catch up anyone interested on our current activities, favorite JI posts, etc. So, without further ado:

David Grua

Started blogging at JI: October 2007
Current School (and degree sought): Texas Christian University (PhD, History)
Favorite JI post: Joel’s Identifying with Romney? My Historiographical Rant Against Mormon Ethnicity
Research Interests: racial ideologies and Mormonism (curse of Canaan); Native Americans; American West; civil rights; Mormonism and political ideologies; collective memory and identity.

Christopher Jones

Started blogging at JI: October 2007
Current School: The College of William & Mary (PhD, History)
Favorite JI post: Matt’s musings on Parley Pratt’s conversion and the patterns of Mormon piety
Research Interests: Evangelicalism in the early Republic; Methodist schismatics; lived religion; the relationship between religion, race, and nationalism.

Jared T.amez

Started blogging at JI: October 2007
Current School (and degree sought): University of Utah (MA, History); but where I’ll be this time next year is up in the air : )
Favorite JI post: David’s BYU Religion Made Me P*ke
Research Interests: I am researching the LDS Church in Mexico. I am interested in the history of the Church in Latin America as well as in South Texas.  I am currently editing the diaries of Anthony W. Ivins.

Stanley Thayne

Started blogging at JI: in the beginning…
Current School: UNC-Chapel Hill (PhD, Religious Studies)
Favorite JI post: Edje’s bug stuff (see here, here, here, and here).
Research Interests: metaphysical-theosophical stuff; moorish science; American scripture; religion in the American West; death; B. H. Roberts; Edith Peshak; polygamists and utopians in southern Utah; the all-seeing eye of the omnipotent Jehovah.

Ben Park

Started blogging at JI: October 2007
Current School (and degree sought): University of Edinburgh (MSc, Theology in History)
Favorite JI post: Recently? Ryan T’s Parley Pratt and the Literary Impulse
Research Interests: 18th and 19th Century Transatlantic Thought, Theology, Intellectual History, American Romanticism.

Steve Taysom

Started blogging at JI: January 2008
Current School: Cleveland State University (Assistant Professor, Religious Studies)
Favorite JI post: Jared’s post on the Provo Temple renovation
Research Interests: Religion and memory, the role of narrative in religious boundary formation, Shakers, Mormons, ritual studies, demonology and devil figures in comparative religious perspective.

Jordan Watkins

Started blogging at JI: February 2008
Current School (and degree sought): University of Nevada, Las Vegas (PhD, History)
Research Interests: 19th Century U.S. Religious History; American West.

Joel Miyasaki

Started blogging at JI: March 2008
Current School (and degree sought): University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (PhD, History)
Favorite JI post: David’s Through Missourian Eyes: Remembering the Mormon War in Missouri
Research Interests: Mormon Historicity, Race and Ethnicity, U.S. Empire, Asian American History.

Matt Bowman

Started blogging at JI: April 2008
Current School (and degree sought): “G’Town, as well call it” (That’s Georgetown University for the uninitiated; PhD, History)
Favorite JI post: [Guest blogger David] Howlett’s typology of Community of Christ historians
Research Interests: Theology, particularly Protestant; the evangelical movement; Protestant fundamentalism and liberalism; Mormon ephemeralia.

Ed Jeter

Started blogging at JI: June 2008
Current School (and degree sought): Sam Houston State University (MA, History); High School Math instructor, Sanabil Private School, Janabiya, Bahrain.
Research Interests: Identity construction, particularly involving groups not physiognomically distinct from surrounding population; document analysis; 1890s; Colonial/Imperial/Postcolonial-ism.

Brett Dowdle

Started blogging at JI: August 2008
Current School (and degree sought): Brigham Young University (MA, History)
Research Interests: history of Mormon education; U.S. Progressive Era history.

Elizabeth Pinborough

Started blogging at JI: September 2008
Current School (and degree sought): Yale Divinity School (MA, Religion and the Arts)
Favorite JI post: Stan; also, Ryan T.’s Joseph Smith and Poetry-Prophecy
Research Interests: medieval bestiaries and manuscript illumination, aesthetics, play-writing, spiritual autobiography.
Loves: Shakers.

Ryan Tobler

Started blogging at JI: February 2009
Current School (and degree sought): University of Chicago (MA, Religious Studies)
Favorite JI post: Christopher’s Making Sense of Doctrine and Covenants 39-40; or why it matters that James Covill was a Methodist and not a Baptist
Research Interests: 18th/19th Century Transatlantic Religion/Culture; New England intellectual culture; Secularization; ‘Liberal’ Christianity.

Steve Fleming

Started blogging at JI: June 2009
Current School (and degree sought): University of California, Santa Barbara (PhD, Religious Studies)
Favorite JI post: Edje’s Blue Beard
Research Interests:Where Mormonism comes from; or, the persistence of popular medieval religiosity.

So that’s us. We’d like to invite you to (re)introduce yourselves to us, now. We appreciate the engaging discussion readers have elicited in the comments and continue to enjoy the friendships this venture has created. So please share with us who you are, how long you’ve been reading, and your favorite post (if you have one). We’d also like to invite you to recommend how we might improve the blog in the coming year, including features (book reviews, roundtable discussions, etc.) you’d like to see more of.

Thanks for reading.[2]

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[1] We hope we’ve also matured a bit, too, though that seems unlikely. We certainly have no plans at the moment to drop the Juvenile from our blog’s title, as our namesake did years ago.

[2] Again, out special thanks goes to Jonathan Stapley, who designed the blog’s current layout and maintains the site. We would not be where we are today without his assistance.