By Ben PSeptember 30, 2014
From our friends in SoCal.
Authority, Community, and Identity
Call for Papers
The Religion Department at Claremont Graduate University is pleased to announce its annual Mormon Studies Conference, to be held March 6 and 7, 2015 in Claremont, California. We encourage proposals from graduate students and faculty of all disciplines. There are limited travel subsidies available for graduate student presenters. The theme for this year is ?Authority, Community, and Identity.
The study of Mormonism requires an exploration of what it means to be a religious person. Individuals exist within a community where they negotiate and maintain their identities. The conference organizers are open to a wide range of paper proposals, including but not limited to topics suggested by the following themes and questions: How do people negotiate their Mormon identity in joining or leaving Mormonism? How does ritual impact community maintenance and religious authority? How have developments in communication changed methods of creating orthodoxy and heterodoxy? In what ways have changing norms and debates regarding gender and sexuality impacted identity and community? How have communities of doubt influenced claims to authority and identity? How has Mormon identity and community developed regionally and internationally? What role does tradition play in different geographies? How has secularization altered Mormon community formation and institutional authority?
While this conference will focus on Mormonism in particular, we encourage comparative papers, or papers on related traditions in which the theories or insights developed have some bearing on Mormonism.
Please email paper proposals and a CV to jeffrey.turner@cgu.edu by November 15, 2014. Proposals should be no longer than 250 words and should be attached as a Word or PDF document. Please indicate in the email if you would like to be considered for travel funding.
By Barbara Jones BrownSeptember 29, 2014
We’re pleased to present today’s guest post from Barbara Jones Brown. Barbara was the content editor of Massacre at Mountain Meadows (OUP, 2008) and is now at work on the book’s sequel. She holds a master’s degree in American history from the University of Utah and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Brigham Young University. She serves on the board of directors for the Mormon History Association and on the Mormon Women’s History Initiative Team.
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On September 11, 2014, dozens of people from throughout the United States gathered at the lower monument of southern Utah?s Mountain Meadows. We were there to remember the victims of the atrocity that took place in that valley exactly 157 years before, when Mormon militiamen led a massacre of some 120 California-bound emigrants. Most of the victims were from Arkansas. Only seventeen children aged six and under survived. The monument, dedicated September 11, 1999, marks the spot where the emigrants took cover behind their wagons during the five-day siege and where U.S. troops laid many of their bones to rest in 1859.
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By September 28, 2014
Another week, another Mormon Studies Weekly Roundup
On the more academic side of things, the annual conference of the John Whitmer Historical Association kicked things off this weekend in Lamoni, Iowa. Check out the twitter feed for JI Ben’s tweets on the conference. The feed also confirms rumors that LDS Church Historian Steven E. Snow is in attendance. BYU’s L. Tom Perry Special Collections has advertised a position for Curator of 19th and 20th Century Mormon and Western Americana Books. Also, the Mormon Texts Project announced that five historical Mormon e-books have been added to Project Gutenberg. If you’re in the Logan area next week, come hear venerable historian Ron Walker speak on Brigham Young and the Utah War at the 20th Annual Arrington Lecture.
Elder Snow and other Church History Department officials spoke at a press conference recently that provided details on the Church History Museum’s permanent exhibit renovation, “The Heavens Are Opened,” scheduled to open October 2015. As several media outlets noted, the new exhibit will augment the museum’s artifact collection with technology to enhance the story of the early Restoration (1820-1846). These newspaper articles interpret the new exhibit within the church’s recent efforts to approach its history with transparency (with the Joseph Smith Papers and the Gospel Topics essays as the most notable examples), as the exhibit will attempt to tackle difficult historical issues, such as multiple accounts of the First Vision, seer stones and Book of Mormon translation, and Nauvoo polygamy.
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By ChristopherSeptember 25, 2014
Several years ago–perhaps 2009 or 2010–I first heard about a paper slated to be published in a major literary journal that radically reinterpreted the Book of Mormon as an Amerindian apocalypse. Whispers of both its imminent publication and its brilliance continued, and at some point, I was forwarded a prepublication draft of the paper. This isn’t altogether unusual in Mormon Studies–unpublished papers and theses, typescripts of difficult-to-access manuscript sources, and PDFs of out-of-print books passed from person to person have a long, storied, and sometime litigious history in the often insular world of Mormon scholarship. But unlike other instances I’m aware of, the importance of this paper was not in its access to otherwise unavailable primary source material or its controversial content, but rather in its interpretive significance.
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By Ben PSeptember 24, 2014
Michael W. Homer, Joseph?s Temples: The Dynamic Relationship Between Freemasonry and Mormonism (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2014).
There are few topics in Mormon history more fraught than the relationship between Mormonism and masonry. From the Mormon apologetic folklore that Joseph Smith only attended three masonic meetings to the anti-Mormon accusation that the temple rituals were merely plagiarized masonic rites, this is a topic that enlivens discussion in academic classrooms and missionary companionship study alike. Michael Homer?s Joseph?s Temples is the most recent contribution to this discussion, as it is a vastly expanded version of his previous work on the topic. And though it may not be up to addressing the deeper and more complex issues involved with the topic that are demanded by today?s Mormon studies field, it is the culmination of four decades of Mormon scholarship on the religion?s contested history with the contested fraternity.
Unlike most work on Mormonism and masonry, this book is not dedicated to the two years between Joseph Smith?s introduction of temple endowments, which came months after his induction to the Nauvoo Lodge, and his death in Carthage Jail, when his last words were the masonic call for distress. Rather, this book has a very broad chronological and geographic sweep, detailing freemasonry?s development in Renaissance Europe to masonry?s demise and resurgence in Utah. Half of the book does, though, detail with the Nauvoo period, which chapters dedicated to race, gender, ritual, and succession. Though this framework for chapters made it somewhat redundant at times?and certainly did not help with the book?s length?it did add to the book?s exhaustive nature, which is indeed its best strength.
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By Tona HSeptember 22, 2014
Exponent II’s board in 1974 and 2014 (credit: Heather Sundahl)
began in 1974 in the Cambridge neighborhood of Harvard Square. On its fortieth anniversary, its founders ? silver, sassy, and more than a little surprised that what they had wrought was still going strong ? returned to one of the neighborhood?s church halls packed with guests to celebrate the organization and its achievements. I was so, so happy to be there, too.
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By Mees TielensSeptember 21, 2014
Let’s dive right in:
First things first: the Church History department is now on Tumblr! I’ve already added it to my blog roll and look forward to more fun and informative posts.
Then, a Trib article on the (presumed) relationship between Mormons and the GOP, and a Huffington Post article on Mormons, social media, and progressive activism.
And because this post deserved another link, and these are words I never thought I’d read in one sentence, “Polygamist women in ninja costumes” involved in nefarious activity. See KUTV for more details on what is a funny headline for a sad story.
Lastly, a reminder that the deadline for this year’s Mormon History Association is coming up! All submissions are due October 1. You can find the CFP here.
Feel free to add your links in the comments!
By Tod R.September 20, 2014
The newly redesigned Harold B. Lee Library website is a great resource. Having spent a good deal of time with the site I thought it would be useful to highlight resources and (generally) overlooked goodness at BYU’s libraries and archives for your Mormon Studies research.
L. Tom Perry Special Collections
You know what it is, but did you know the Special Collections provides RSS feeds for the following?
The feeds can be a bit spotty, but the collection highlights are at least monthly and very helpful. One blog recently featured the excellent Newel K. Whitney Papers, which were digitized not long ago by the staff there. A few more highlights include: a direct link to search the Special Collections’ finding aids: http://findingaid.lib.byu.edu/, Trails of Hope: Overland Diaries and Letters, 1846?1869, and a web map that shows all geocoded (items with a geographic location) collections (over 3900 items!).
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By Mees TielensSeptember 19, 2014
1. There’s something for everyone: exhibits on Relief Society history, Presidents of the Church, Book of Mormon Fiesta…
2. One exhibit, “Practicing Charity: Everyday Daughters of God,” features some striking art about the breadth and depth of womanhood and charity. Regular JI readers might remember this post, in which curator Lauren Allred Hurtado introduced the exhibit. (Not in Utah? You can see an online version of the exhibit here.)
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By J StuartSeptember 15, 2014
I’d like to offer some thoughts I’ve had on Jehu J. Hanciles’ Tanner Lecture at the 2014 meeting of the Mormon History Association. During his lecture, Professor Hanciles, a Professor of Global Christianity at Emory University, shared his research on the growth of Mormonism in Africa.
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