The keynote speaker for the Juanita Brooks Conference on Utah History will be Dr. Matthew J. Grow! Grow is Managing Director of the Church History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In that capacity, he leads a team of history professionals who collect documents and artifacts, preserve them, and promote understanding of the Church’s past through a publishing program, a research library, a museum, and many historic sites. Grow also serves as a general editor of the Joseph Smith Papers and Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days. He has published widely on Latter-day Saint history and American religious history. Grow received his PhD in American history from the University of Notre Dame.

You can read more about the Brooks Conference below:

Third Annual Juanita Brooks Conference

Utah State University

April 25-26, 2025

The Third Annual Juanita Brooks Conference will be held on April 25-26, 2025. Juanita Brooks wrote extensively about her family and other family relationships, biographies, as well as about southern Utah, most famously about the Mountain Meadows Massacre. We welcome papers related to Juanita Brooks’ work in southern Utah and its surrounding Mormon communities. The program committee invites scholars young and old, local and global, to investigate all aspects of these themes:

1) Family

2) Biography 

3) Region (specific to southern Utah, Idaho, Arizona, and Nevada)

4) Religion

While topics may address Latter-day Saint or Mormon history, the conference is not specifically centered on either theme.

Please submit (1) a 150-word abstract for each paper or presentation and (2) a two-page CV for each presenter, including email and cell phone contact information. Previously published papers are not eligible for presentation. 

Limited financial assistance for travel and lodging at the conference is available to students, contingent, and independent scholars. If you wish to be considered, please include a proposed itemized budget with your submission. The deadline for proposals is December 12, 2024. Send proposals as a single PDF to the program co-chairs at jstuartteaching@gmail.com and amanda.hendrixkomoto@gmail.com. Acknowledgment of receipt will be sent ASAP. 

Notification of acceptance/rejection will be made by January 10, 2025.