The Empire Expands: JI Welcomes Saskia and Natalie R.

Thanks to our great contributors and fabulous online community, Juvenile Instructor is stronger than ever. To perpetuate the “Era of Good Feelings,” we are thrilled to welcome two new permabloggers: Saskia and Natalie R.

Both have guest-blogged with us before, and have been active in the comments. For a refresher, here is how the introduce themselves.

Saskia:

Saskia Tielens earned her BA and MA in American studies from Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. She is in her second year as a PhD student in Dortmund, Germany, and is writing her dissertation on the ritualization of Mormon history as well as teaching various courses in the American studies department there. Most recently, she was a participant in this year?s summer seminar on Mormon culture, led by Richard Bushman. Saskia particularly enjoys coming at Mormon studies as a non-Mormon, and considers the concept of funeral potatoes to have enriched her life.

Natalie R.:

I am a doctoral candidate in American history at Michigan State University. Prior to my time at MSU, I received my B.A. and M.A. in women?s history from Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York. My dissertation examines the disjunctures between how Mormon leaders and young women envisioned ideas of a ?Mormon girlhood? from 1869 to 1930. I analyze how the LDS leadership and influential church members created and presented their own ideas of an appropriate childhood and adolescence through church organizations and publications. Though many young women upheld these ideals, I argue that they used private writing, such as correspondences and daily journals, as a space to question, challenge, and often accept the leadership?s shifting attitudes toward women?s place and participation within the church. I am also interested in how Mormon conceptions of childhood and adolescence fit into more mainstream conversations about age and lifespan during the turn of the twentieth-century. After finishing a six-month research stint in Salt Lake City and Provo, I am finally starting to write my dissertation. I eagerly look forward to contributing to the Juvenile Instructor.

Please join me in welcoming these great additions to the JI community.

Conference Announcement: 2013 Church History Conference, “Approaching Antiquity: Joseph Smith’s Study of the Ancient World”

From our good friends at BYU and the Church History Department. You can follow up-to-date changes at the conference’s website.
______________________________

Approaching Antiquity:

Joseph Smith?s Study of the Ancient World

CHURCH HISTORY SYMPOSIUM

March 7-8, 2013

Jointly Sponsored by

The Department of Church History and Doctrine, Brigham Young University

The Church History Department, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Continue Reading

MHA Odds and Ends, January

January means a lot of things. For me, it means biting cold and a desire to never leave the house.

But it also means new stuff from the Mormon History Association, which is a bit better news than the weather. First, the new issue of Journal of Mormon History was released. (Amazingly, with no letters to the editor!) You can find the full table of contents here. Articles include an examination of John D. Lee’s trial, a fascinating look at Mormon redress petitions in Nauvoo by new JSP editor Brent Rogers, and an article by myself and fellow JIer Rob Jenson on what a particular debate in 1846 between a Strangite and Brighamite tells us about the succession crisis. There are also, as always, a good mix of book reviews to keep you up to date on developments in the field. If you don’t already, make sure to subscribe to the journal, especially now that you can have immediate electronic access to new issues.

MHA also uploaded their January newsletter (pdf here). Here are a few of the highlights:

Continue Reading

Call for Submissions: MHA Graduate/Undergraduate Paper Awards

From our good friends at the MHA:
_______________________________________

Dear Colleagues and Students:

I serve as chair of the Mormon History Association?s best undergraduate and graduate student papers awards committee. Each year we solicit nominations from students for these awards. Students may make one submission by sending me an electronic copy no later than February 15, 2013. The undergraduate award carries a prize of $300. The graduate award carries a prize of $400.

To be considered:
– the work must have been completed in 2012
– an electronic copy of the paper must be submitted to jsillito@weber.edu by the due date
– the submission must include a cover letter which provides the student?s name, school, status, major, contact information (phone and street address), and e-mail address

Additional information can be found at:
www.mormonhistoryassociation.org/awards/

Winners in each category will be contacted prior to the MHA annual conference, June 6-9, 2013,  in Layton, Utah.

Please encourage your students to make submissions, and feel free to send this information to others who might be interested.

John Sillito
Weber State University
Ogden, UT 84408
801-626-8568

Article Spotlight: Stephen Taysom, “Abundant Events or Narrative Abundance: Robert Orsi and the Academic Study of Mormonism”

If you don’t subscribe to Dialogue yet, repent now and change your ways before the day of judgement arrives.

In case you missed it during the business that is the holiday season, the winter issue of Dialogue appeared on its website. As its lead article, our own Steve Taysom offers a fabulous look at one of the new and provocative theories in religious studies: Robert Orsi’s “abundant events.” This theory should be familiar with Mormons studies practitioners and Dialogue readers since Orsi, Richard Bushman, and Susanna Morrill did an interview about it in Dialogue‘s fall 2011 issue. Put simply, Orsi’s theory starts with the problem that plagues many scholars: what does one do with supernatural events that are claimed by the religious people one studies? Or as Steve summarizes, “how do scholars of religion account for experiences that are simultaneously irrational and real?” (4-5) Orsi’s response is to construct a conceptual category that both avoids the reductionism of skeptical scholars while still providing a framework in which the importance of the claimed experience can still be analyzed. Taysom examines the theory and sees how it works when applied to the study of Mormonism’s gold plates.

To summarize Steve’s fantastic article, I’ll gist his main argument, critiques, and conclusion, and then highlight what I think are the two most important aspects of the work. After giving a helpful summary of both the academic summary of religion as well as Orsi’s theory of “abundant events,” Taysom engages the benefits and pitfalls of such an approach. The biggest benefit, according to Taysom, is that “Orsi is attempting to create categories that bring religious experience into the ‘real’ world rather than attempting to fence them off” (5). But Taysom’s biggest critique is that Orsi never really explains whether it is the event or the narrative of said event that carries so much weight within a faith tradition. He is not willing to agree with Orsi that “abundant events…seem to exist and act independent of mundane historical agents” (9). For Taysom, it is the later narratives of the event that influence how people act and react, not the original event itself. “I can conclude,” writes Taysom, “that Orsi’s theory of abundant events is useful to the study of religion in general, and Mormonism in particular, only to the extent that it recognizes, accepts, or explains, in an explicit and clear manner, the role of narrative in the process of making the events ‘real'” (10).

Continue Reading

Books that Need New Editions

Among the books in my forthcoming list for next year, there are new and expanded editions of two Mormon history classics: Terryl Givens’s Viper on the Hearth (available for preorder here) and Phil Barlow’s Mormons and the Bible (available in spring). This is great news. Both volumes were early experiments by Oxford University Press with Mormon history, and their success led the press to become the flagship academic publisher in the field. Both also made big dents in the Mormon historical community: Barlow’s nuanced the traditional understanding of how Mormons interacted with the Bible (I rely on his “selective literalism” model in much of his own work), and Givens, among other things, showed how American culture conceptualized Mormons as a distinct ethnic group as a way to avoid dealing with their theology. And finally, both works served as frontrunners and models to the current generation in Mormon studies: using Mormon examples to engage broader tensions and answer larger questions. It will be great to see both books in new, updated, and paperback editions–especially since Viper on the Hearth will finally be affordable! (I still remember shelling out $65 for a copy while an undergrad…)

Continue Reading

Gaining Credibility Within Mormon Studies

This past weekend I read through Armand Mauss’s recent (and excellent) memoir, Shifting Borders and a Tattered Passport: Intellectual Journals of a Mormon Academic (SLC: UofU Press, 2012). There is lots to digest in it, and it should inspire several posts/discussions, but one thing stood out to me in the chapter that gave an overview of his career. I had no idea Mauss had such a circuitous route in academia before landing at Washington State University for three decades: he began as a high school teacher, moved on to a community college, and eventally landed university positions, first at Utah State University (where he somehow negotiated an Associate Professor position before finishing his dissertation!) and then at WSU in 1969, all the while working many odd jobs to support his family of eight children and finishing his schooling at night. Once at WSU, his career blossomed with many publications and increased respect.

It wasn’t until the 1980s, though, that he decided to turn his attention to Mormon studies. His dissertation dealt with Mormonism and race, though he had put that topic aside during his first decade plus as a faculty member. It wasn’t until he had “earned his dues” (his words) as a scholar and member of the sociology department, singling out his ability to bring in state and federal money for his academic projects, that he could do work on Mormonism full-time (26). Only then could he take the skills and talent he gained in other fields and use them to analyze his own faith tradition.

Continue Reading

Previewing 2013: A Look Forward to Exciting Books in Mormon History

Yesterday I highlighted books and articles from the last year. But 2012 is nearly history now, so let’s look forward to the next year. What you’ll find below are the books I am most excited to appear in 2013 (or very early in 2014).

This list in no way attempts to be comprehensive. (For that, let’s all hope Jared T continues his legacy of fantastic and exhaustive “Recently Released and Forthcoming Books in Mormon History” at his new site.) Rather, this post just captures a number of titles I am really excited about–make sure to add to the list in the comments. And as is unfortunately common in the publishing world, there is a chance some of these titles may slip into the next calendar year, but at least we know they are not too far off.

Continue Reading

2012 in Retrospect: An Overview of Noteworthy Articles and Books in Mormon History

Continuing a tradition from the past three years, here is my overview of what I found to be the most noteworthy books and articles from the last twelve months. I like this format because it not only allows discussion of different media of publication, but it also encourages us to contemplate broader themes that are currently ?hot? in Mormon historiography. (Also make sure to check out Stapley’s always-helpful Christmas book list.)

As with previous years, I am posting this in early December and will thus miss those books published later this month. Further, the selection process was purely subjective and represent my own interests; please add your own suggestions in the comments.

Continue Reading

Book Review: John S. Dinger, The Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes

Dinger, John S. ed. The Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes. Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2011. lxxxi + 616 pp. Appendixes, index. Hardback with dust jacket: $49.95; ISBN 978-1-56085-214-8.

In his preface to this volume, John S. Dinger claims, “The minutes collected in this volume are a treasure trove of material reading to the religious and secular life of the early Latter-day Saints,” and that “these two sets of documents are, I believe, two of the most important primary sources for the period” (xvi). I agree, and thus take privilege in reviewing the volume. Nauvoo is an absolutely fascinating period of Mormon history, filled with contention, innovation, conflict, dissent, and intrigue. All of these tensions come out in these important documents, as well as the mundane events that transpired in day-to-day activities.

Though the two councils in question, the City Council and High Council, were two separate bodies, they had significant overlap. Both were made up of Mormon authorities, both looked to Joseph Smith for leadership, and both seemed to merge the church/state realms that America prided itself on keeping separate (though never, in actuality, succeeded). What took place in one council likely had significance to the other, and decisions from both bodies demonstrated the LDS Church’s performance of power during the waning years of Joseph Smith’s life. What we witness in these meetings are men attempting to run the Kingdom of God on earth–no small task to take place in disestablished America. Religious sermons are offered in secular council, secular decisions are made in religious courts. Perhaps more than anything else, this collection demonstrates the permeable boundaries of church and state in Mormon Nauvoo.

Continue Reading