Articles by

Ben P

News and Notes from MHA

By January 27, 2011


MHA put up its quarterly newspaper this week, and there are a few items worth noting.

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The LDS History Canon; Or, a Mormon Comps List

By January 26, 2011


At the award-winning US Intellectual History Blog, David Sehat took on the monumental task of outlining the US History Canon (he had previously done a list on the 19th century here). Designed primarily as a template for a comprehensive exams reading list, it also aims to be a great source on standard debates in historiography. Here is the stated goal:

Come up with a list of truly canonical books that everyone who has gone to graduate school in U.S. history should have read. This is not just a list of intellectual and cultural history–it is supposed to include all the major works in modern U.S. history in all the different sub-specialties. In certain cases where an article was substantially the same as an important book, we added the article instead. We also left out many good books and books that would help to fill out a coherent narrative, trying instead to arrive at a truly canonical list. That is, of course, an impossible task, given the fragmentation and specialization of the historiography of the United States. But we thought it worth the effort in any case.

Of course, these types of lists are more to provoke discussion than to be a definitive statement. A so-called “canon” is more often a reflection of the compiler’s interests and background than an objective judging of the entire breadth of scholarship.

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Jesus College, and Ashamed Faith

By January 23, 2011


Walking through the campus of Jesus College is akin to visiting a middle age monastery.

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Some Thoughts on the Mormon Kingdom of God, circa 1840s

By January 4, 2011


[As a heads-up, this post does not attempt to make any claims or arguments. It’s just a few half-baked thoughts concerning early Mormon notions of the Kingdom of God and how it related to Americanism, specifically during the 1840s. I hope it generates some discussion–or, at least–encourages some thought on what I think may be an under-utilized approach to early Mormon history.]

It’s almost considered a common trope nowadays to describe Mormonism as “the quintessential American religion”–or something in those regards. Harold Bloom may be most famous for recently making such a claim, but the sentiment has been around a long time. An American-born prophet, an American-located Garden of Eden, a canonized revelation extolling the American Constitution, an American-centered headquarters–you get the idea. The question of how Mormons in the nineteenth century understood their relationship with the United States has received a lot of attention in recent decades, with good reason. It is a fascinating story of how Mormons both rejected America—by becoming fed up with persecution and mobocracy and moving West—while still holding the pure “ideal” of America and merely equating their contemporary nation as experiencing an apostasy akin to modern-day Christianity. Mormon scriptures both placed America the location at the center of future divine events while also prophesying the downfall of America the government as a necessary apocalyptic sign paving the way for the millennium. The paradoxical positioning of both rejecting and embracing the American image was at the center of the Mormon sense of self during the late-Nauvoo and early-Utah periods.

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2010 in Retrospect: A Glance at some of the Scholarly Books and Articles in Mormon History

By December 6, 2010


I love year-in-review lists. Building on last year’s post, this is a retrospective of 2010’s scholarly output in Mormon studies. I hope to add to the excellent posts by Jared (forthcoming) and J Stapley by listing not only books, but articles that also deserve attention. (As noted recently, historians should really reconsider our “journal standard,” and place more importance on scholarship other than monographs.) I also like this format because it allows reflections on general trends within Mormon studies and historiography in general.

I am bound to overlook some books and articles that others feel are significant. This is not on purpose–it is more a result of being 1) lazy 2) limited in my personal interests, or 3) ignorant of work while being stranded across the Atlantic Ocean. I hope people will mention and discuss the texts I overlook in the comments. There could also be another post dedicated to the excellent historical posts found in the bloggernacle over the last year–but that would be beyond the scopes of this retrospect.

[Note: Some of these works have a publication date of 2009. I include these for one of two reasons. 1) They were published after I posted last year’s retrospective (the perils of posting at the beginning of December). 2) Though they have a 2009 publication date, they actually didn’t appear until 2010.]

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Book Review: Polly Aird: ‘Mormon Convert, Mormon Defector’

By November 9, 2010


[Note: The following is a book review forthcoming in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. I appreciate Kristine Haglund and Russell Fox for allowing me to reproduce it here.]

Aird, Polly. Mormon Convert, Mormon Defector: A Scottish Immigrant in the American West, 1848-1861. (Norman, Okl.: Arthur H. Clark Company, 2009). 320 pp. Illustrations, photos, maps, footnotes, bibliography, index. Cloth: $39.95, ISBN 978-0-87062-369-1.

Just as national histories are always written by the victors, religious narratives are often written by those who remain within the fold. The common tropes of conversion, devotion, dedication through trials, and faithfulness until death dominate Mormon historiography. What are missing are those whose stories diverge from the traditional storylines. In Mormon Convert, Mormon Defector: A Scottish Immigrant in the American West, 1848-1861, Polly Aird provides us with an account of someone whose narrative significantly differed from the norm. Peter McAuslan embraced the Mormon faith in his native Scotland, made the arduous trek to Utah to live with the body of Saints, grew disillusioned with the faith he once loved, and then decided to leave the Church, flee Deseret, and establish a new life once more in California. While stories like McAuslan?s are often quickly forgotten, they are crucial to enriching our understanding of the historical period, offering a-traditional views in order to complete our portrait of the past.

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Historical Fundamentalism and Mormon History

By November 1, 2010


Historical fundamentalism has been a hot topic as of late. Partly as a reaction to movements like the Tea Party, partly as a continuation of the frustrating distance between mainstream and academic history, and partly in response to the growth of constitutional originalism in public discourse as an opposition to societal and political changes?all three parts, it should be noted, are unmistakably interconnected?there has been an increase of ruminations concerning the relationship between the past and the present. (See here, here, here, and here, for example. Also, and especially, here, and here) A recent and significant contribution to these debates comes from Harvard historian Jill Lepore, whose The Whites of their Eyes: The Tea Party?s Revolution and the Battle over American History is a captivating account of how people use (and abuse) the past for modern causes, collapsing the distance between then and now in an effort to gain political and intellectual validation. (A great overview of the book, as well as an insightful interview with Lepore, can be found here. For an enlightening previous interview with Lepore on the importance of being a ?public historian,? sees here.)[1] Personally, I?ve been looking forward to the book for months.

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Mormon History at ASCH 2011

By October 18, 2010


I am likely behind the times, but I just noticed that the American Society of Church History released a preliminary program for their 2011 meeting in Boston (which can be found here). While there are many panels that promise to be not only fascinating but relevant to frequenters of JI, I thought I would point out three sessions that are likely of particular interest.

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CFP Reminder: MHA 2011: From Cotton to Cosmopolitan

By September 2, 2010


2011 St. George, Utah Conference
Call for Papers
From Cotton to Cosmopolitan:
Local, National, and Global Transformations in Mormon History


The forty-sixth annual conference of the Mormon History Association will be held May 26-29, 2011, at the Dixie Center in St. George, Utah. The 2011 theme, ?From Cotton to Cosmopolitan: Local, National, and Global Transformations in Mormon History,? evokes both the specific history of St. George and environs, and Mormonism as a religious tradition more generally.

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Microhistory and Mormon Studies

By August 31, 2010


As you might be able to tell from my recent posts, I have recently been contemplating historical theory and the historian’s craft, especially as it relates to Mormon history. I am particularly interested in historiographic methods that have not, as of yet, been adopted in Mormon studies. (See here, for instance.) Today, after reading Jill Lepore’s evocative essay “Historians Who Love Too Much: Reflections on Microhistory and Biography,” I am contemplating the benefits of microhistory.[1]

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