By November 5, 2018
From our friends at the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University in Provo, UT:
Job Summary:
The mission of the Folklore Archives Specialist is to 1) identify and acquire, 2) describe and organize, and 3) provide reference service for the folklore materials held in the William A. Wilson Folklore Archives within the L. Tom Perry Special Collections.
Essential functions (include, but are not limited to):
By November 4, 2018
The Mormon Women’s History Initiative Team has asked Colleen McDannell to speak and answer questions on her new book, Sister Saints: Mormon Women since the End of Polygamy, on Thursday, November 8. 2018 at the University of Utah. Please mark your calendars and plan to attend!
By October 29, 2018
With Halloween this week, I thought it would be fun to highlight some work on a spooky topic. In the past year, scholars have published two excellent articles on exorcism in the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I’ve included them below and a link to a podcast by Blair Hodges and the Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship featuring Stephen Taysom.
By October 25, 2018
I have spoken with Amanda Hendrix-Komoto of Montana State University, and she encouraged me to tell everyone that the proposals do not have to focus on Wallace Stegner. Instead, her department is hoping that the received proposals will take a theme from Stegner’s work – family, community, etc. – and examine it in a way that goes beyond Stegner’s original vision of the West.
Wallace Stegner and the Changing American West:
Reimagining Place, Region, Nation, and Globe in an Era of Instability
-A Call for Papers and Other Creative Work-
Center for Western Lands and Peoples
Wallace Stegner Chair in Western American Studies
College of Letters and Science / Montana State University, Bozeman
By the time of his death, Wallace Stegner (1909-1993) had become the epitome of the politically engaged western American writer able to express himself across a range of genres, from fiction to history, autobiography, and essays. In books such as The Big Rock Candy Mountain, Wolf Willow, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian, Angle of Repose (Pulitzer Prize), and The American West as Living Space, Stegner brought to life and illuminated the West like few other authors. Of uppermost concern to Stegner were issues of transiency and community, landscape quality and degradation, family life, the importance of place, and the need for ways of living that foster stable social bonds and stable economies within the realities and constraints of western environments.
By October 22, 2018
This is not strictly Mormon history related, but many who are interested in Mormon history will want to hear Dr. Gross speak. Join us!
The Rocky Mountain American Religion Seminar will host Rachel Gross on November 1, 2018 at the University of Utah. She will deliver a lecture on Genealology and American Jewish Religion.
By October 22, 2018
Biography
Bilagáanaa niliigo’ dóó Kinyaa’áanii yásh’chíín. Bilagáanaa dabicheii dóó Tsinaajinii dabinálí. Ákót’éego diné asdzá̹á̹ nilí̹. Farina King is “Bilagáanaa” (EuroAmerican), born for “Kinyaa’áanii” (the Towering House Clan) of the Diné (Navajo). Her maternal grandfather was EuroAmerican, and her paternal grandfather was “Tsinaajinii” (Blackstreaked Woods People Clan) of the Diné. She is Assistant Professor of History and an affiliate of the Cherokee and Indigenous Studies Department at Northeastern State University, Tahlequah, Oklahoma. She received her Ph.D. in History at Arizona State University.
She was the 2016-2017 David J. Weber Fellow for the Study of Southwestern America at the Clements Centers for Southwest Studies of Southern Methodist University. She was the 20152016 Charles Eastman Dissertation Fellow at Dartmouth College. She received her M.A. in African History from the University of Wisconsin and a B.A. from Brigham Young University with a double major in History and French Studies. Her main area of research is colonial and postcolonial Indigenous Studies, primarily Indigenous experiences of colonial and boarding school education. Her first book was published by the University Press of Kansas, in October 2018, which is titled The Earth Memory Compass: Diné Landscapes and Education in the Twentieth Century. In this book, she explores how historical changes in education shaped Diné collective identity and community by examining the interconnections between Navajo students, their people, and Diné Bikéyah (Navajo lands). The study relies on Diné historical frameworks, mappings of the world, and the Four Sacred Directions.
By October 17, 2018
This list comes from the Leonard Arrington Papers at Utah State University. It’s fascinating to see how far the historical professions has gone–can you imagine writing a thesis or dissertation on the LDS Church in all of South America(!!)? It’s amazing to see how specialized things have become, but also how Mormon the theses are. I’m not sure that writing something on the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, without using it as a lens to examine something else, would be encouraged today for aspiring academics.
HISTORICAL DEPARTMENT OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS
TWENTY-SIX MOST URGENTLY NEEDED THESES IN LDS CHURCH HISTORY
By October 9, 2018
I’ve recently begun reading every academic or quasi-academic article on the history of the LDS Church’s research restriction as a part of my work on the Century of Black Mormons Project and my own research on the history of Mormonism and race. I’m learning a lot about the ways that the restriction has been framed, how white academics wrote about the history of Black people in Mormonism, and am formulating bigger research questions on secularism, modernity, and authority. More on those topics another day, or in my dissertation.
As I’ve read more than 200 secondary sources now, I wanted to share articles, books, and book chapters that I don’t think receive enough attention. Please share your favorite articles are in the comments. Please also be sure to check out the Century of Black Mormons website to read more about the lives of individual Latter-day Saints of African descent.
By October 8, 2018
Thanks to friend of JI, Carter Charles, for sending this:
Following a pattern of itinerant preachers, inherited from the Second Great Awakening context from which their religion emerged, and from New Testament proselytes, Mormon missionaries began as early as June 1830 to go on missions. First, they traveled within the United States and Canada; then, looking beyond North America, they began to take their religion across the world starting with a mission to England as early as 1837.
By October 7, 2018
Thanks to Caroline Kline, Research Assistant Professor at Claremont Graduate University for passing this along to us!
The Mormon Studies program at Claremont Graduate University is now funding research grants for people studying global Mormonism.
While they will be accepting proposals for the next few months, they will be giving preference to proposals we receive by the end of October. Our hope is to see significant progress on funded projects by April 2019. We are interested in helping to fund projects that are already underway, as well as new projects.
Please see the call for proposals HERE, and contact Caroline if you have any questions.
© 2025 – Juvenile Instructor
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