By GuestMay 31, 2011
Nate R. teaches American History to 8th graders and community college students in Colorado Springs. His MA Thesis on slavery in Utah won the MHA’s Best Thesis prize in 2008. His transcription of Joseph F. Smith’s Hawaiian diaries, titled “‘My Candid Opinion’: The Sandwich Islands Diaries of Joseph F. Smith,” is coming out in June.
In summer 2005 I was working as a researcher/writer for the Education in Zion Exhibit at BYU when the exhibit director, philosopher C. Terry Warner, called me into his office. He had been putting a lot of thought into it, he told me, and had decided to assign me to do the background research for one of the permanent Exhibit features: an overview of the life of Joseph F. Smith (EiZ is housed in the Joseph F. Smith Building).
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By Ben PMay 30, 2011
To say that the study of Mormon history has entered the digital age would be a drastic understatement. Last friday, representatives from the LDS Church History Library gave what appears to be an exhilarating introduction to new web content for both the Library itself as well as the Joseph Smith Papers. (A Mormon Times article last week also highlighted the JSP’s emphasis shift from print to web, though there will still be much printed goodness.) The awesomeness of these sites and their online content cannot be overstated. I fear that if I tried to outline the positive aspects of this I would merely be stating the obvious. Regardless, I drone on. I’d like to outline what some of the best online digital sources are, what the positive impact may be within the Church and the academy, and finish with a few words of caution.
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By ChristopherMay 27, 2011
Below are this year’s Mormon History Association award winners. Juvenile Instructor bloggers are identified in blue.
__________________________
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By Jared TMay 27, 2011
I submitted the following abstract in response to MHA?s call for papers for the 2011 conference, underway as we speak. I was pleased to receive notice that my proposal had been accepted, but in the time between submission and acceptance, circumstances had changed. My family was now expecting a new arrival, due May 23, 2011 (he arrived a week early?welcome, Hyrum!). Since the due date was the very week of MHA, I declined acceptance, and I?m jealously following reports of those who are attending. Here is the abstract:
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By Ben PMay 23, 2011
In case anyone needed more motivation to attend. (Or, in my case, more regret at not being able to attend.)
What follows are short abstracts of the MHA papers being presented by Juvenile Instructor contributors, just to give you a sampling. There are numerous other Mormon history and bloggernacle celebrities taking part in the conference (including JI’s friends Sam Brown, Brittany Chapman, Rob Jensen, Janiece Johnson, and Margaret Young, to name a few), so keep your eyes peeled to the online program.
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By ChristopherMay 20, 2011
As most of our readers probably know, the Mormon History Association’s annual conference will be held next week in St. George, Utah. The program looks great, and a number of JIers will be presenting and participating. I look forward to hearing great papers, catching up with old friends, and hopefully making new ones. For those students who plan on being there, make sure to attend the student reception on Friday evening after the awards banquet at 9:15 pm; it’s a great place to relax and meet other young scholars studying Mormon history–plus there’s free food and door prizes.
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By May 18, 2011
With the participation of a host of notable scholars (and including a number of JIers), this looks like it’s going to be an amazing event.
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By ChristopherMay 16, 2011
Behold here is the agency of man, and here is the condemnation of man: Because, that which was from the beginning is plainly manifest unto them, and they receive not the light.
-Revelation to Joseph Smith, May 6, 1833 (Doctrine & Covenants 93:31)
“Agency” is a buzzword prominent in both of the worlds that I, and other Mormon historians, inhabit on a day-to-day basis. Within the world of Mormonism, the word signifies a central tenet of Latter-day Saint theology, one that receives regular and sustained attention from church leaders and in Sunday School curriculum. In the historical profession, meanwhile, “agency” has been labeled “the master trope of the New Social History”—signifying the collective efforts of social historians to rescue from the dustbins of history the lives and stories of marginalized figures, including especially African American and Indian slaves, women from all walks of life, and others who left behind few written records and lived otherwise unremarkable lives.[1]
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By Steve FlemingMay 14, 2011
D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, Revised and Enlarged Edition. Salt Lake City: Signature, 1998.
In reassessing Quinn’s classic study, I’ll simply say that Stephen Ricks’s and Daniel Peterson’s review of the first edition still applies to the second. The book “reflects deep erudition” and “offers considerable evidence indicating that Joseph Smith, members of his family, and some of his early associates were involved in the use of seer stones, divining rods, amulets, and parchments, as well as in the search for buried treasure.” In other words, Quinn effectively argues his chief assertions.
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By Jared TMay 12, 2011
I confess to having been slightly confused about exactly what has been published in the JSP and I may be the only one, but just in case I’m not, I thought I’d put up this short summary of what we have to date. With the very recent addition of two volumes, the fine scholars at the JSP continue their excellent work.
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