This is my third year(!) doing this recap and I decided to limit listing five for each category. There are many more worthy of consideration. This list is reflective of my own interests and I want folks to add more publications in the comments.

Also, I’ll tell you who I think is going to win MHA awards if you Venmo me enough an Austin SLAB (IYKYK). Topics and works are in alphabetical order and are not an indication of rank.

Global Mormonism

• Belnap, Heather, Corry Cropper, and Daryl Lee. Marianne Meets the Mormons: Representations of Mormonism in Nineteenth-Century France. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2022.
• Filho, Fernando Pinheiro da Silva. “Fragmented History: Challenges and Perspectives Building a Narrative of the Latter-day Saints in Brazil.” Journal of Mormon History 48 no. 3 (July 2022): 23-30.
• Freeman, Catherine S. “Drum Rhythms and Golden Scriptures: Reasons for Mormon Conversion within Haiti’s Culture of Vodou.” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 55, no. 3 (2022): 43-73.
• Howlett, David J. “The RLDS Church, Global Denominations, and Globalization: Why the Study of Denominations Still Matters.” Journal of Mormon History 48 no. 3 (July 2022): 1-14.
• Kline, Caroline. Mormon Women at the Crossroads: Global Narratives and the Power of Connectedness. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2022.

The future of Mormon studies is global.

Legal Studies

Oman, Nathan B. “Salt, Smurthwaite, and Smith: The Origins of the Modern Legal Identity of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” Journal of Mormon History 48 no. 1 (January 2022): 92-122.

Church and state issues remain central to contemporary Mormonism in the US and abroad. This article helps place major events within their legal and Mormon contexts.

Media Studies

• Allred, Mason Kamana. “Developing the Dead: Spirit Photography, Mormonism, and Noise.” Journal of Mormon History 48 no. 2 (April 2022): 106-130.
• Champoux, Jennifer. The Book of Mormon Art Catalog.

Allred’s work forces Mormon studies scholars to think more critically about discursive, cultural, and media histories. We need more folks thinking in these areas.

Champoux’s collection may end up being the most important contribution to Mormon studies this year. There’s a wealth of material here that will spawn future studies.

Primary Sources

• Compton, Todd. In Sacred Loneliness: The Documents. Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2022.
• Joseph Smith Papers, Documents, Volume 13: August-December 1843. Edited by Christian K. Heimburger, Jeffrey D. Mahas, Brent M. Rogers, Mason Kamana Allred, J. Chase Kirkham, and Matthew S. McBride. Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2022.

Thank goodness for the folks doing the hard work of organizing, annotating, and publishing primary sources. 

Race

• Harris, Matthew L. “Joseph Fielding Smith’s Evolving Views on Race: The Odyssey of a Mormon Apostle-President. “Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 55 no. 3 (Fall 2022): 1-41.
• Hendrix-Komoto, Amanda. Imperial Zions: Religion, Race, and Family in the American West and the Pacific. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2022.
• Rosetti, Cristina. “Not Until the Millennium: 1978 and Fundamentalist Whitelash.” American Religion 2 no. 3 (2022): 51-68.
• Sánchez-Walsh, Arlene M. “Jesus en las Americas: Exploring Latter-day Saint Latinx Politics and Culture.” Journal of Mormon History 48 no. 2 (April 2022): 28-41.
• Wenger, Tisa W. “Making Religion in Michilimackinac: Settler Secularism and US Empire.” in Tisa Wenger and Sylvester A. Johnson, eds., Religion and US Empire: Critical New Histories (New York: New York University Press, 2022), 41-62.

I’m thrilled that most of these articles whose topics and approaches are truly innovative. Perhaps it’s because race is the subfield I’m most engaged in, but I can get frustrated with the repeated framing of certain topics. That isn’t the case this year. The future of Mormon studies is moving beyond the US-centric framing of the racial restriction. The theories and methods and multiple fields engaged in these works are crucial to the field’s continued relevance. 

Sacred Space

• Curtis, Legrand R. Jr., Benjamin C. Pykles, and Courtney A. Worthen. “The Hill Cumorah: Restoring a Sacred Site.” Journal of Mormon History 48 no. 2 (April 2022): 42-74.
• Olmstead, Jacob W., Josh Probert, and Elwin C. Robinson. “Myths and Realities of the Salt Lake Temple Foundation.” Journal of Mormon History 48 no. 4 (October 2022): 32-65.

I’m always thrilled to see folks engaging in broader religious studies theory and methods. While these articles are largely historical I think that they point to new directions for Mormon history.

Sacred Texts

• Blythe, Christine Elyse, Christopher James Blythe, and Jay Burton, eds. Open Cannon: Scriptures of the Latter Day Saint Tradition. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2022.
• Johnson, Janiece. “Lucy Mack Smith and Her Sacred Text.” In Christine Elyse Blythe, Christopher James Blythe, and Jay Burton, eds. Open Cannon: Scriptures of the Latter Day Saint Tradition. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2022.
• Mason, Patrick Q. “History, Religious Studies, and Book of Mormon Studies.” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 31 no. 1 (2022): 35-55.
• Murphy, Thomas W. “An Insufficient Canon: The Popul Wuj, Book of Mormon, and Other Scriptures.” Journal of Mormon History 48 no. 3 (July 2022): 71-98.
• Welch. Rosalynde Frandsen. “The Secular Syllabus and the Sacred Book: Literary Scholars Approach the Book of Mormon.” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 31 no. 1 (2022): 100-121.

Several folks who like speculating about the future of the field as much as I do have told me that scripture and theology are the next “big thing” in Mormon Studies. As a humble historian I am not so sure. What I am sure of, though, is that this year features a bumper crop of scholarship on scripture. 

Theology

• Ford, Chad, Timothy Boyd, Réka Bordás-Simon and Zach Tilton. 2022. “Apocalypse or Zion? How Eschatology Affects Attitudes toward Social Peace among Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” Journal of the Mormon Social Science Association 1, no. 1: 73–92. 
• Hilton, John III, Emily K. Hyde and Megan Cutler. “An Atoning Priority in the Hymns of Calvary and Gethsemane.” Journal of Mormon History 48 no. 3 (July 2022): 110-133.
• Inouye, Melissa Wei-Tsing. “Good Government Begins with Self-Government.” BYU Studies 61 no. 1 (2022): 13-26.
• Reynolds, Noel B. “Covenant Language in Biblical Religions and the Book of Mormon.” BYU Studies 61 no. 2 (2022): 139-176.

My comments from the “Scripture” section apply here, too.

Women and Gender

• Lund, Jennifer L. “I am not considered much of a polygamist”: Sarah Peterson Lund Writes to Her Missionary Husband.” Journal of Mormon History 48 no. 2 (April 2022): 1-27.
• Mohrman, K. Exceptionally Queer: Mormon Peculiarity and U.S. Nationalism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2022.
• O’Brien, Hazel. “Contemporary Femininities in Mormonism and in Ireland: Challenging and Confirming Essentialism in Online Spaces.” Mormon Studies Review (2022): 52-62.
• Rosetti, Cristina. “O My Mother’: Mormon Fundamentalist Mothers in Heaven and Women’s Authority.” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 55, no. 1 (2022):110-133.
• Ross, Nancy, David J. Howlett, and Zoe Kruse. “The Women’s Ordination Movement in the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints: Historical and Sociological Perspectives.” Mormon Studies Review 9 (2022): 15-26.

Women’s history remains a central focus of the field (rightfully so) and I’m also excited to see how new questions are starting to move to the fore.