Thanks to friend of JI Matthew Grow for reaching out to us regarding this announcement!Further information can be found at the Communcal Studies Association website.
Sessions will begin at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time and end at 6:00 p.m. Eastern. Each session will be 90 minutes in length, generally with three presenters speaking for 25 minutes with time for questions. Viewers will be able to query speakers in real time via the Q & A tab. There will be 15 minutes between sessions. Our business meeting, election and awards ceremony will occur on Friday evening.
Registration will be on our website at conference registration. Cost for registration will be just $50 for members, $60 for non-members and $10 for students and current communitarians. We hope this low price will encourage many to attend who might not otherwise be able to afford the transportation and lodging expense of an in-person conference. So please spread the word!
Kurt Manwaring has published an interview with Joseph Geisner, over on his site, From the Desk. Geisner has published in Sunstone, the John Whitmer Historical Journal, the Journal of Mormon History, and Irreantum. Joe is an avid book collector of the New Mormon History, and rare and collectible Mormon books. An excerpt from Manwaring’s site on Geisner’s new edited collection, Writing Mormon History: Historians and their Books is available here; click over to From the Desk to read the rest!
CCHSF Autumn Lecture Series: Community of Christ’s Global History
Community of Christ Historic Sites Foundation (CCHSF) is hosting online lectures every Thursday night at 7:00 pm (Central) from October 1 – November 19, 2020. Each week CCHSF will journey, through the pages of church history, to a new area of the world. The 8-week series will feature church history around the globe: Korea, India, England, Southeastern Nigeria, Canada, and the Holy Land.
The online lectures are free and open to the public with any donations received going to support the ongoing preservation and maintenance of Community of Christ historic sites.
Kurt Manwaring has published an interview with Matthew Grey, over on his site, From the Desk. Grey earned his Ph.D. in Religious Studies from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. An excerpt from Manwaring’s site on Joseph Smith, translation and Hebrew is posted below; click over to From the Desk to read the rest!
Why did Joseph Smith assume he could gain insights into the Egyptian language and Book of Abraham by studying Hebrew?
Matthew Grey: There is evidence that many early Latter-day Saints—including Joseph Smith, W.W. Phelps, and Oliver Cowdery—naturally adopted some of the assumptions circulating in their nineteenth century intellectual climate, including the common views mentioned above that supernatural means were necessary to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs and/or that Egyptian was a linguistic system related to Hebrew (both having descended from the original “pure language” of humanity) that could be illuminated through Hebraic insights.
Thanks to friend of JI K. Pollock for putting this together!
Metamorphosis:
Scattered and Gathered Saints Emerge After Crises
Saturday, September 19, 2020, 5:30 p.m. CDT
Join the John Whitmer Historical Association from the comfort of your own home to see two great presentations on restoration history by Dr. Jane Hafen and Dr. David Howlett, to enjoy an awards ceremony honoring the top books and articles of 2019, and to participate in a hymn sing!
You can read the original announcement HERE. If you were accepted for the 2020 program, please take care to let Joseph Stuart and Anne Berryhill whether you’d like to present your 2020 paper/panel in 2021. You have until November 15, 2020 to confirm you will deliver your paper, but the sooner you can let them know the easier you will make it to map out a 2021 program!
Mormon History Association
56th Annual Meeting
Rochester/Palmyra, New York
June 10-13, 2021
The Mormon History Association is pleased to announce the rescheduling of its Rochester/Palmyra conference for June 10-13, 2021. This 56th Annual Conference continues the previously-planned theme, “Visions, Restoration, and Movements,” commemorating the 200th anniversary of Mormonism’s birth in upstate New York. If health conditions don’t allow an in-person meeting, MHA will make the conference available digitally.
The Church History Department announces an opening for a Research Historian with the Joseph Smith Papers project. The successful candidate will assist the Publications Division with historical and textual research. This is an exciting and outstanding opportunity for someone interested in pursuing a career in history. We are looking for a motivated, upbeat, and skilled individual to join our team.
This is a full-time position starting in September 2020 and expected to last 12 months.
Please attach a vita, a short writing sample demonstrating ability in using primary sources to form a cogent argument, and a list of three references to your application.
RESPONSIBILITIES
Duties will include research related to document analysis (textual and documentary intention, production, transmission, and reception) and contextual annotation of documents (identifications and explanations). Research will involve work in primary and secondary sources for nineteenth- and twentieth-century America and Latter-day Saint history. Work will include assistance to historians working on publication projects.
The Research Historian will work under the direction of senior Historians/Writers.
QUALIFICATIONS
The ideal candidate will possess the following knowledge, skills, and abilities:
Completion of Bachelor’s degree in history, religious studies, or other related field, preference will be given to those with master’s degrees and/or in doctoral programs in history, religious studies, or related field.
Knowledge of and training in historical research
Demonstration of excellent research and writing skills
Ability to work in a scholarly and professional environment
Strong organizational, time management, and verbal communication skills
Organized, with an ability to prioritize time-sensitive assignments
Creative and flexible
Ability to work in a team, as well as independently
From the editors of Producing Ancient Scripture: Joseph Smith’s Translation Projects in the Development of Mormon Christianity:
In conjunction with this year’s annual conference of the Mormon History Association, the University of Utah Press is offering a 20%-off advance sale on the soon-to-be released
Producing Ancient Scripture: Joseph Smith’s Translation Projects in the Development of Mormon Christianity (available 26 June 2020). This sale also includes free domestic shipping.
The offer is available through the book’s University of Utah Press webpage:
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