Mormon Studies Audiobooks

I have a post up over at The Junto this morning reflecting on my audiobook listening habits. I note there, among other things, that “audiobooks … have become a means of helping me keep up with scholarship outside of early America (including periods and subjects I will likely need to teach at some future point), introducing myself to historical subjects in which I am peripherally interested (including the history of sport, the history of food), and of listening to popular and academic histories that fit under the broad umbrella of ‘early American history’ that I might not find time to read in the immediate future.” While writing that post, my thoughts turned to the relative dearth of quality audiobooks on subjects that fall under the large umbrella of Mormon Studies.

My reasons for wanting to listen to Mormon Studies audiobooks largely mirror the reasons cited in the first paragraph — it would be a convenient way to keep up with a field I remain committed to and interested in but one in which my current research does not fall. Given the general success of books in the subfield published by major university and trade presses over the last few years, I am a little surprised that more have not been recorded as audiobooks. Looking back through the library of audiobooks I’ve purchased, downloaded, and listened to over the last three or four years (a library of 50+ volumes), I realized that it included only one Mormon title — our very own Matt Bowman’s excellent survey of Mormon history. A quick search for “Mormon,” “LDS,” and “Latter-day Saints” in Audible.com’s library turns up an odd mix of ex-Mormon narratives, nineteenth-century faith promoting titles, a couple of volumes either for or against Mitt Romney, and only a small handful of Mormon Studies titles (including, most promisingly, Terryl Givens’s The Book of Mormon: A Very Short Introduction and Spencer Fluhman’s A Peculiar People). The only biography of Joseph Smith available is Alex Beam’s American Crucifixion [edit: I somehow missed Robert Remini’s short and accessible biography of JS.]. The offerings at University Press Audiobooks are even slimmer.

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Jared Hickman on “The Book of Mormon as Amerindian Apocalypse”

Several years ago–perhaps 2009 or 2010–I first heard about a paper slated to be published in a major literary journal that radically reinterpreted the Book of Mormon as an Amerindian apocalypse. Whispers of both its imminent publication and its brilliance continued, and at some point, I was forwarded a prepublication draft of the paper. This isn’t altogether unusual in Mormon Studies–unpublished papers and theses, typescripts of difficult-to-access manuscript sources, and PDFs of out-of-print books passed from person to person have a long, storied, and sometime litigious history in the often insular world of Mormon scholarship. But unlike other instances I’m aware of, the importance of this paper was not in its access to otherwise unavailable primary source material or its controversial content, but rather in its interpretive significance.

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Mormon Studies Weekly Roundup

And it shall come to pass, that instead of sweet smell there shall be [links]:

First up, a couple of items from a little beyond a week ago: The Salt Lake Tribune wrote about the latest exhibit at the Church History Library, a veritable treasure trove of rare documents and publications from the archives.  Over at Religion in American History, Charlie McCary and Michael Graziano introduced readers to a course they’re team-teaching at Florida State this semester on Religion & Law in U.S. History. See Part I here and Part II here.

Last Saturday, Slate‘s “The Vault” featured a “day-by-day commemorative map of the Mormon journey West” from the late 19th century. According to Rebecca Onion, “The map?s commemorative publication in 1899 seems to show how quickly pilgrimage tourism, now common among Saints, had taken hold.” Speaking of the late 19th century, it was in 1893 that the LDS Church was denied a seat at the World’s Parliament of Religions held in conjunction with the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Next year, 122 years later, the Parliament will be held in the heart of Mormonism, Salt Lake City.

The Givenses remained in the news this week, with Terryl and Fiona each participating in a Reddit AMA on r/latterdaysaints. They also joined Doug Fabrizio on RadioWest for an interview about their latest book.

Over at A Motley Vision, Scott Hales lays out “a fifteen-week reading course in the Mormon novel.” Check it out here.

We’ll wrap things up this week with a handful of conference announcements: The Association for the Study of Religion, Economics, and Culture has posted a CFP for their annual conference, to be held next March in Boston. Proposals are due October 3 (for single papers) and October 17 (for complete sessions). Miles Mullin previews this year’s Conference on Faith and History annual conference at The Anxious Bench. Colleen McDannell is giving one of the four plenary addresses on the subject of “Heritage Religion and the Mormons.? And finally, in what looks to me like the conference of the years, Southern Methodist University’s Center for Presidential History and the Danforth Center at WUSTL are co-sponsoring a conference on “Religion and Politics in 21st Century America” (in Dallas, TX on November 8). The roster of presenters is a veritable who’s who of the best and brightest young scholars of American religious history, including JI’s good friend Spencer Fluhman, who will present on “Never-Ending Mormon Moments.”

Pioneer Day: Recommended Reading from JI’s archives

Happy Pioneer Day, readers! Thank you for your patience with us lately — we know things have been slow around here (they tend to get that way during the summer), but we have some exciting things planned moving forward and hope you’ll keep checking in, reading, and commenting moving forward.

In recognition of Pioneer Day, I’ve culled from the Juvenile Instructor’s archives links to several previous posts treating Mormon Pioneers in one sense or another. In hopes that they’ll prove interesting to those who missed them the first time around (and to those, like me, interested in revisiting them), here we go:

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Mormon Studies Weekly Roundup

We’re back with another weekly roundup of links from the world of Mormon Studies. Let’s jump into it:

Alex Beam’s examination of Joseph Smith’s murder continues to garner attention. Check out the Salt Lake Tribune‘s coverage, including Peggy Fletcher Stack’s write up and Jennifer Napier-Pierce’s video interview with the author at Trib Talk.

In other news, the LDS Church History Library celebrated Canada Day by posting this fantastic souvenir card from the dedication of the Cardston Temple on their facebook page. Moving even further beyond U.S. borders, Al Jazeera America examined “The rise of Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Caucasus.” It’s a fascinating read, and might provide some fodder for researchers interested in digging further. 

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Repudiating the Pearl of Great Price?: More on Reactions to the 1978 Revelation

Earlier this year, I posted some thoughts on Latter-day Saints’ reaction to the announcement of the 1978 revelation on the race-based temple and priesthood ban. The post elicited a lot of excellent responses, including several from Latter-day Saints who shared their own memories and recollections of LDS responses in the wake of the revelation. Among the most intriguing comments, though, came from commenter Ben S., who offered an anecdote he once heard about “several hundred LDS [who] signed their names to a full-page ad in a local newspaper to the effect that they knew Kimball was a fallen prophet, this revelation wasn?t possible, on the basis of past statements, scriptural interpretation, etc.”

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Mormon Studies Weekly Roundup

We’re back with another installment of your weekly roundup of links to articles, blog posts, and other notices in the world of Mormon Studies.

The Boston Globe ran an article on Harvard’s participation in the online course (MOOC) craze. Of interest to JI readers is Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s participation. Dr. Ulrich’s class, “Tangible Things,” is a material history course that “will teach history through artifacts in Harvard?s museum collections to an expected 10,000 students.” Ulrich’s fellow Massachusetts Mormon Mitt Romney also made headlines recently when he weighed in on Wolfeboro, New Hampshire Police Commissioner Robert Copeland’s use of a racial slur to describe President Obama. Nothing particularly Mormon about Romney’s comments, but scholars of Mormon and race may want to take note.

Meanwhile, Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies at CGU Patrick Mason was named a Fulbright Scholar. CGU’s website has all of the details about his upcoming “travel to the West University of Timisoara in Romania, where he will teach courses in American history, politics, and culture.” Congrats, Patrick!

Over at Rational Faiths, Laurel Sandberg-Armstrong summarizes the recent changes to Young Women lessons.

Those of you in Salt Lake will want to take note of Chad Orton’s June 12 lecture on George Q. Cannon’s mission to Hawaii at the Assembly Hall on Temple Square. Orton helped edit GQC’s Hawaii mission journals (which are now complete and set to be published in early July!). Greg Kofford Books posted an interview with Joe Spencer, whose For Zion: A Mormon Theology of Hope, is imminently forthcoming as well.

The Center for Religion & American Culture at IUPUI is hosting a conference on The Bible in American Life. The entire program looks fantastic, and JI readers will be particularly interested in Amy Easton-Flake’s presentation on “Biblical Women in the Woman?s Exponent: The Bible in Nineteenth-Century Mormonism.” Over at the Religion in American History blog, Paul Putz posted Part II of his preview of forthcoming books in American Religious History this year, a list that includes Terryl Givens’s Wrestling the Angel and Thomas Carter’s “biography of the cultural landscape of western LDS settlements,” Building Zion.

Part I of Putz’s list, posted in January, included David Howlett’s long-anticipated Kirtland Temple: Biography of a Sacred Space. That volume is scheduled to be released on Friday this week (!!), so hurry up and order your copy now.

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Mormons and Basketball in the Philippines

LDS Meeting House, Kabankalan, Negros Occidental.

Just a quick note today to point readers to my post that went up yesterday at Peculiar People. It looks at the basketball-crazed nation of the Philippines and wonders about the place of basketball-crazed Mormons within that wider phenomenon. If you served a mission in the Philippines or are a basketball fan or otherwise want to weigh in, please do, either in the comments here or over there. Here’s a preview:

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Mormon Studies Weekly Roundup

Missed out on the latest news in the world of Mormon Studies? We’re here for you and back with another weekly roundup of relevant links. Let’s get to it:

Over at Rational Faiths, Connell O’Donovan writes about three newly discovered early black Mormon women. The discovery—incredibly important to recovering the African American presence in early Mormonism in all of its facets—is based on careful and surely time-consuming analysis of personal papers and printed sources. 

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“Crows Can Now Eat Crickets”: An attempt to complicate our understanding of LDS reactions to the 1978 Revelation on the race-based Priesthood and Temple Ban

What follows is a sort of follow-up to Joey’s excellent post last week analyzing reactions to the 1978 revelation ending the race-based priesthood and temple ban. I am admittedly far outside of my own field here, and it is entirely possible I’m not aware of some study that has already been written and published. Please feel free to point out any such work in the comments, and to otherwise respond to the post.

In December 2007, perennial presidential candidate and prominent Mormon Mitt Romney was asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” about the 1978 revelation that signaled a shift in LDS church policy and lifted the ban that had previously denied people of African descent ordination to the priesthood and entrance into LDS temples. Romney’s response was a familiar one to most Mormons:

I can remember when I heard about the change being made. I was driving home from ? I think it was law school, but I was driving home ? going through the Fresh Pond rotary in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I heard it on the radio and I pulled over and literally wept. Even to this day, it?s emotional.

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