This is certainly casting a pretty wide net. Things in heaven AND earth, in all disciplines, students and professionals.

I’ll be interested to see what comes of it.

Feel free to use this thread to connect and put together potential panels.

Comment by Jared T — November 2, 2009 @ 4:03 pm

This is a question that the JI gang might have some insight into:

How well respected is BYU Studies beyond Mormon academic circles?

An honest question, and something I’ve been meaning to ask…

Comment by smallaxe — November 2, 2009 @ 7:42 pm

smallaxe,

BYU Studies would not mean much in my discipline, even at BYU, when it comes to attaining tenure. I think that it could be viewed as a respectable place to publish LDS-Oriented public intellectual work.

Having said that, there is some good stuff in BYU Studies related to my interests.

Comment by Chris H. — November 2, 2009 @ 7:55 pm

smallaxe, few non-Mormon American historians would recognize the journal if they saw it on a CV. A few years back, when I worked for Jack Welch as an undergrad, there was talk of changing the journal’s name to something more academic-sounding, but obviously, nothing came of that. In terms of name recognition (and academic respectability), I’d say that BYU Studies lags behind the Journal of Mormon History, Utah Historical Quarterly, and Dialogue. For example, the only Mormon journal my institution (TCU) subscribes to is Dialogue.

Over the years, BYU Studies has published some important New Mormon History-type articles that are important to historians interested primarily in Mormon history but not necessarily broader issues.

Comment by David G. — November 3, 2009 @ 12:07 am

Just to build on David and Chris H., an editor of a respected scholarly religion journal recently counseled me to turn to Journal of Mormon History or Dialogue before BYU Studies. But I also agree with the two commenters above me that BYU Studies does have some great material, though. (like the most recent issue, for instance.)

Comment by Ben — November 3, 2009 @ 3:05 am

Interestingly UCSB subscribes only to BYU Studies; they let their Dialogue subscription lapse.

Comment by Steve Fleming — November 3, 2009 @ 11:17 am

Steve, is that because they get it electronically?

Comment by J. Stapley — November 3, 2009 @ 11:27 am

Thanks for the responses.

Comment by smallaxe — November 3, 2009 @ 1:03 pm

Yea, they do J. Oops. No JMH though.

Comment by Steve Fleming — November 3, 2009 @ 1:43 pm

speaking of BYUS,[1] is anyone going to AAR in Montreal? I’ll be accompanying my brighter half who is speaking on Nation of Islam foodways, plugging away on a laptop. Anyone else planning to attend?
———-
[1] or not.
[2] I don’t get the sense that BYUS is used for promotions boards anywhere (even at BYU), but they’ve published a variety of interesting work over the years.

Comment by smb — November 3, 2009 @ 9:14 pm

Interesting, Steve. That would be interesting to get a few more examples of which Mormon-themed journals other universities carry. TCU also carries UHQ, but I suspect they get all the state historical journals.

Comment by David G. — November 3, 2009 @ 11:16 pm

David, I think that would be really interesting. Also interesting would be to see how aggressively journals like JMH and Dialogue market themselves to universities and what factors go into a university’s decision to carry one or the other.

Comment by Jared T — November 3, 2009 @ 11:35 pm