2011 in Retrospect: A Look at Important Books and Articles in Mormon History

(I’ve closely followed Mormon history for only six years, but the previous twelve months were, by far, the strongest year in Mormon historical studies that I’ve seen yet. As always, JI is the place to be for looking at past and present scholarship in Mormon history. Besides the following recap of the 2011 year, Jared T’s perennially exhaustive “Recently Released and Forthcoming” list will appear later this week. Also make sure to check out Stapley’s Christmas Book Guide here.)

Continuing a tradition from the last two years, this post will give a quick run down of what I thought were important articles and books in Mormon history from the past 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.

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Graduate Studies, Mormonism, and the Bloggernacle: A Survey

From Patrick Mason:

At the January 2012 meeting of the American Society for Church History, I’ll be on a panel called “Teaching Mormonism in a Digital Age.” In my comments I’ll be considering the impact of the “bloggernacle” on Mormon studies, specifically in regard to the current generation of graduate students. I have designed the following questionnaire to get a better handle on why people read Mormon blogs and what they get out of them. The questionnaire is for any graduate student, full or part time, LDS or non-LDS, in any academic field. The informed consent form on the first page will explain more, or you can contact me at patrick.mason@cgu.edu with any questions. Thanks for participating.

The link to survey is found here.

Thoughts on the introduction to the new JSP Volume: Journals Vol. 2 (1841-43)

Though they haven’t held a “bloggernacle event” or “virtual launch” yet, the Joseph Smith Papers just released the most recent addition to their foundational series. Journals, Volume 2 (1841-1843) covers the first half of Smith’s Nauvoo journals, and includes many great gems that will help future researchers of this important period in Mormon history. While there is much to cover in the actual journals—I’ll leave that to J Stapley, who I hope will do another excellent review of the overall text like he’s done for the other volumes—I just want to comment on a single section of the introduction; in fact, only about seven pages of the introduction.

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Call for Applicants: BYU’s Church History and Doctrine Department Seeks Two New Hires

The Church History and Doctrine Department at BYU’s School of Religious Education seeks applicants for two new faculty positions. The first will teach world religions—a booming topic at BYU, I hear—and the second will focus on the more traditional curriculum of the department, preferably with a PhD in history.

Applications for these positions are to be completed online, and are found through this link.

Avoiding Intellectual Paralysis, Part II: Craig Harline’s Conversions, and Historical Relevancy

[Part I on the importance of narrative is found here. Also, see Blair’s review of Harline’s book at BCC yesterday, which gives an excellent overview of the book’s narrative(s).]

Craig Harline, professor of history at Brigham Young University and noted Reformation scholar, has long been noted as a skilled author whose prose and approach reach a much broader audience than is typical for academic books. Whether it’s a Reformation archbishop, a seventeenth century nun, or a comprehensive history of Sunday, Harline is widely respected for making historical stories accessible for general readers.

But while finishing his book on conversion in seventeenth-century Europe—focusing on a family whose father was a Protestant minister, whose son was a convert to Catholicism, and how they balanced these tough issues of tolerance—Harline considered ways to make the book more relevant to contemporary readers. He narrates how he came to this conclusion in the epilogue to the book: during a chance meeting with some family friends at a local restaurant, he learned about their college-age daughter’s recent choices and the grief and disappointment it brought to their close-knit family. Trying to bring comfort to the troubled parents, Harline shared the story and lessons of his current book-in-progress. Satisfied with the (albeit limited) relief that this brought, he felt justified in his desire to use his book “to show explicitly how the distant past could possibly have meaning in the present, and vice versa.” History, he concluded, was too often seen as “something mostly suitable for school, or hobbyists, something to be discussed recreationally..rather than as something that might inform present experience” (269-272). Hoping to reverse this trend, and hoping to better reach people an audience like his friends with the wayward child, Harline re-envisioned the overall framework and methodology of what is now published as Conversions: Two Family Stories from the Reformation and Modern America (Yale UP, 2011).

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Avoiding Intellectual Paralysis, Part 1: Jill Lepore on the Importance of Narrative

Last month, at the end of a nearly month-long east-coast research trip, I had the privilege of attended a splendid graduate-student conference hosted by the University of Pennsylvania’s McNeil Center for Early American Studies, titled “The Power of Stories: Authority and Narrative in Early America.”[1] The weekend was filled with spectacular papers, wonderful networking, and I came away invigorated and excited to dig into my own dissertation research. But, not surprisingly, the most provoking paper of the conference was the plenary presentation given by respected Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore. Her paper, “Telling Histories: Or, What Narrative Does,” poses important questions to American scholars in general, and may be of similar importance to practitioners of Mormon studies.

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Overlooked and Under-appreciated Books in Mormon History

For a book project I am currently working on, I recently revisited Ron Walker’s Wayward Saints: The Godbeites and Brigham Young (which you can download for free here). I had glanced through the book years ago, but it never really made that big of an impression. However, this time through it struck me as a phenomenal volume. Not only is it full of nuance, sophistication, and exhaustive research, but it is better written than a majority of Mormon history books I’ve read. It made me better appreciate Leonard Arrington’s description of Walker as the “best writer” in Mormon studies.

This got me thinking: what other books do we sometimes overlook in the field? Wayward Saints, for instance, only received one vote in a recent survey here on JI, and I failed to include it on my list of the “Mormon History Canon.” (I would probably add it were I to try the list over again.) Some other books that come to mind:

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Lecture Announcement: David Holland at BYU

From our good friend Rachel Cope:

The Department of Church History and Doctrine at Brigham Young University is hosting a talk titled, “Prophet of Doom, Apostle of Hope: Slavery, Marriage and an Antebellum Search for Authority,” by visiting Scholar David Holland on Thursday, Sept 29, at 7:00 pm. It will be held in W111 Benson. All are invited to attend.

Holland’s recent book, Sacred Borders has received great praise, both from the ‘nacle and the broader academic community. Holland, who teaches history at UNLV, is a rising young scholar in American intellectual, religious, and cultural history. He is also the dissertation advisor of (at least in spirit) JI contributor Jordan Watkins. His (somewhat dated) C.V. is found here.

I hope it gets good attendance, and I wish I could attend!

Call for Papers: The LDS Church During the Joseph F. Smith Era

CALL FOR PAPERS
CHURCH HISTORY SYMPOSIUM
JOSEPH F. SMITH ERA
MARCH 2?3, 2012

Jointly sponsored by the Department of Church History and Doctrine of Brigham Young University and the Church History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Joseph F. Smith, the sixth President of the Church and the last to have personally known the Prophet Joseph Smith, served for 52 years as a General Authority, including as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, as a counselor to four Church Presidents, and as President of the Church from 1901 to 1918. Joseph F. Smith?s tenure as Church President was a key transitional period in Church history. We invite paper proposals that consider the life, teachings, and family of Joseph F. Smith and the social, political, religious, and historical developments during his tenure as President.

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Q&A with Terryl Givens and Matthew Grow on Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of Mormonism, Part II

[What follows are the final six responses from Terryl Givens and Matthew Grow on their recent volume, Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of Mormonism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). Part I can be found here. We wish to sincerely thank Terryl and Matt for participating and offering such insightful answers.]

7. From David G: ?Historians often separate ?the Joseph Smith era? (1820-1844/47) from the ?territorial period? (1844/47-1890). Does Pratt?s life problematize this periodization scheme? Stated differently, does looking at Pratt reveal more continuity or change after JS?s death (at least in the Brighamite group)??

All periodization schemes are inherently problematic. I think that Pratt could be used to support either argument?either continuity or change between the Joseph Smith era and the territorial period. Pratt and the other apostles saw themselves as faithful inheritors of the legacy of Joseph Smith and they sought to extend what they understood as his legacy (including activities from missionary work to plural marriage). Some discontinuities which Pratt?s life highlights includes a decline in doctrinal innovation after Joseph Smith?s death, the establishment of plural marriage as an open system, the turn of missionary work towards the Pacific (including Pratt?s mission to Chile and his supervision of missionary work in California, Hawaii, and other Pacific islands), and an eventual decline in the rich print culture of early Mormonism (Parley?s writing dropped off after the migration to Utah, with the major exception of his Key to the Science of Theology).

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