By August 14, 2012
The Juvenile Instructor’s empire expands.
We are pleased to add three phenomenal historians to our ranks: Janiece Johnson, Jenny Reeder, and Rachael Givens. All are rising stars in the field of Mormon history, and each brings a unique contribution to our team. This is how they introduce themselves:
By August 14, 2012
I recently listened to Joanna Brooks’s fascinating interview on Mormon Stories (which I recommend, especially as a supplementary activity to reading her marvellous memoir), and was struck by one point of the conversation. John Dehlin asked Joanna if the type of identity she exemplifies—that of “unorthodox”—was something new, something that couldn’t have happened long ago. Joanna rightly pointed out her long intellectual genealogy within the LDS tradition, noting that her position is not so much new but exemplary of what many Latter-day Saints had done before her.
The idea of unorthodox figures in LDS history is an important point that deserves further consideration. It also relates to a recent focus of study of mine, Edward Tullidge, who was the topic of my MHA paper this last year. To demonstrate that this isn’t a new phenomenon, I’d like to give a bit of background to Tullidge, mostly plagiarizing my paper, and then touch on his relevance. In today’s age, when the concept of an “Unorthodox Mormon” seems to be heralded as a modern idea, it is important to note the heterogeneous history that is Mormonism.
By August 11, 2012
We’ve advertised this before, but it’s important enough to advertise it again since the dates are approaching. Besides be co-organized by one of our own JIers (Matt B), we’ll have several contributors in attendance who will provide updates and recaps.
Note there are two events, although closely related.
By August 1, 2012
We are extremely excited to introduce our new guest poster, Saskia Tielens. Saskia has commented sporadically on JI before and has proven herself to be an astute observer of Mormonism and Mormon studies. A summary of her presentation on Mormonism’s gold plates and material culture can be found here. This is how she introduces herself.
Saskia Tielens earned her BA and MA in American studies from Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. She is about to start 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.
Her first contribution, reflections on teaching a class on Mormonism as a non-Mormon in Europe, will go up tomorrow morning.
Join us in giving Saskia a warm welcome.
By July 17, 2012
In many ways, the strength of Mormon studies can be measured by the number of quality voices. It is in that vein that we at JI happily welcome another Mormon studies blog to the fold: Worlds Without End. Here is how they describe themselves:
Worlds Without End: A Mormon Studies Roundtable is a group blog for friendly, high-quality academic conversation about Mormon religious worlds and their larger contexts, connections, and consequences. Participants have been carefully selected for their intelligence, diversity of perspectives, and friendly, constructive, respectful styles of discourse.
The use of the term ?conversation? is deliberate. Worlds Without End is intended to be academic, but not dry or impersonal. We strive to produce quality content that will be of interest to academics as well as hobbyists, but we also work hard to balance this with humor, pictures, and a warm and lively communal atmosphere. Contributors to Worlds Without End don?t ?bracket? their personalities here. We believe our personal beliefs, experiences, and voices are part of what make us interesting and give significance to the things we write. Writing in our own voices is an invitation for readers to connect and engage with us on a personal as well as an intellectual level. It is also, however, an act of vulnerability, so please be considerate in your interactions with us.
Worlds Without End, ultimately, is more than a blog. It?s a vision of one possible future for the discipline. We strive to model the openness, insight, creativity, and verve that we believe represent the ideal way forward for Mormon Studies.
As a fellow group blog who shares many of those ideals, we heartily welcome them and look forward to their contributions. Many of their contributors are good friends to JI, and others we hope to get to know more.
By July 16, 2012
The last few years have been a coronation of sorts for Richard Bushman–and rightfully so. After a prolific and prestigious career, the American Historical Association devoted a session to his work, the Mormon History Association distinguished him with their Leonard Arrington Award, and a group of former students held a conference in his honor. (I wrote my reflections of the conference here.) The most recent issue of Journal of Mormon History includes many of the papers presented at that last conference, including several JIers. I just finished the entire issue last weekend, and concluded it was probably the strongest JMH issue in years, as nearly every article was at an exceptionally high level of academic standards.
(It should be noted, however, that the issue as a whole was strong in a few very, very narrow fields: Joseph Smith’s thought, Mormonism and political thought, and historical thought in general. See a pattern? Now this is primarily the result of the participants’ building off of Richard Bushman’s own work–a commemorative issue in honor of Jill Derr would probably look much different, for instance–so the lack of engagement with the 20th century, material culture, lived religion, or, gasp, women’s history can, at least partially, be overlooked. But since these themes tend to dominate Mormon history in general, I maintain the “partially” qualifier.)
By June 25, 2012
As the Mormon History Association’s annual conference is next week (info here), and since a number of JI contributors are presenting, we thought it time to continue our tradition of providing paper abstracts. Below you will find the names, paper titles, and summaries of all JIers participating next week. (A full program is found here.) And make sure to tweet/follow the proceedings at #mha2012.
By May 23, 2012
Anyone familiar with fellow JIer Christopher Jones knows two things: 1) he’s brilliant, and 2) he knows early Mormonism’s connection with Methodism as well as, if not better than, anyone else doing Mormon history. His dissertation, “‘We Latter-day Saints are Methodists’: The Influence on Methodism on Early Mormon Religiosity” is a wonderful introduction to the topic, and can be accessed here. He turned one of his dissertation chapters into an insightful article that was published last year in Journal of Mormon History on Joseph Smith’s First Vision and its relation to Methodist conversion narratives. (JMH subscribers can access it here.) He’s also mused on the relationship at a recent conference. Thus, if you have any question concerning the historic relationship between these two religious movements, he’s the guy to ask.
By May 17, 2012
We’ve been having a warm-spirited debate on note-taking in the JI backlist. On the one hand, we have Team Evernote (we’ll call them the good guys/gals); on the other, we have Team Zotero (for continuity’s sake, we’ll call them the bad guys/gals). One JIer—hint, it’s the documents and record-keeping nerd—thought it was unfortunate that people don’t talk more about their note-taking methods. So we are breaking the norm and discussing the work behind the published product. I’ll start the discussion and then open it up to everyone else; I’m sure there are a lot of tips out there to share on how to be more efficient in our research approach.
By May 8, 2012
(The following is cross-posted, with permission, from the stupendous blog Feminism and Religion. If you haven’t been reading their fascinating and sophisticated material, repent and bookmark their site today.)
Readers of FAR have been treated to a number of posts over the past few months from members of the ?Gendering Mormonism? class I taught this semester at Claremont Graduate University. I was fairly apprehensive in offering the course. For one, I?m not a scholar of gender, gender studies, feminist theory, feminist theology, queer studies, queer theology, or anything related?I?m a historian of American religion, and most of my training to that effect was about the white guys in American religion (most of whom, you?ll be shocked to learn, weren?t exactly feminists). I have also spent some time in international peace studies, where I got a crash course in issues of gender justice. But I entered this course as a relative novice. This is one of the fun things about being a member of a graduate faculty?as a professor I don?t have to pretend to be the fount of all wisdom all the time, and I learn a lot from students who are often more expert in a particular field than I am.
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