This year’s Western History Association (WHA) conference in Denver, CO on October 4-7, 2012 will feature several presentations oriented toward religion in the American West and some which focus on Mormon topics.

See the full program here.

Our own Stan Thayne is in a panel (p. 36) on religion in the American West:

“Open Spaces, Open Minds?: Religious and Spiritual Borders in the American West”

Brandi Denison–“Playing Indian”: Eastern Utah Religious Borderlands, 1910-1940

Stanley J. Thayne–?The Simple Laws of Living?: Redefining Religion in the American West

Jenna Gray-Hildenbrand–Religion, Fraud, and the American West: The ?I Am? Activity and Defining the Limits of Religious Freedom

Ben Brazil–Highway Halos: Imagining Hitchhiking as religious Practice in the 1960s and 1970s

Next, in a panel on gender in the west (p. 43), Brent Rogers has what looks like a fascinating paper: “To Impose Restraint on Carnal Desires: Mormon Masculinity, Gender Expectations, and Popular Sovereignty.”

Melissa Bingmann (p. 50) will present on a panel about public memory with a paper entitled, ” Civilized and Sacred: Pipe Spring National Monument and the Beehive House.”

Finally, there is a Mormon-themed panel (p. 53):

“Creating and Crossing Boundaries in Mormonism and Mormon Studies”

Chair: Quincy D. Newell, University of Wyoming

David Charles Gore–The Principles of Mormon Political Economy in the Scriptural Writings of Joseph Smith

Grant Underwood–The Prophetic Legacy in Islam and Mormonism: Some Comparative Observation

Eric F. Mason–The Saints and the Scrolls: LDS Engagement with Mainstream Dead Sea Scrolls Scholarship and Its Implications

Comment: Patrick Q. Mason

Our own David Grua will also be presenting (p. 40) on  a topic related to his dissertation–?Liquidating the Liability of the U.S. for the Massacre of the Sioux Indians?: Wounded Knee Memory and the Search for Just Compensation.

Looking forward to these and other presentations on race, gender, and borderlands this October. I have likely missed something. If so, please add it in the comments.