By ChristopherJune 14, 2011
(cross-posted at Religion in American History)
Over at Religion Dispatches, Jared Farmer, professor of history at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and author of the excellent On Zion’s Mount: Mormons, Indians, and the American Landscape, reviews the multiple Tony Award-winning broadway play, The Book of Mormon.
By all accounts, Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s satirical look at Mormon missionaries in Africa is funny. With very few
Continue Reading
By Ben PJune 13, 2011
CALL FOR PAPERS
Brigham Young University
Women?s Studies
Invites proposals for the conference:
WOMEN AND CREATIVITY
Conference date: November 3-5, 2011
Throughout history, women have strived to demonstrate their ability to create lasting literary or artistic works, to find new ways of expressing themselves, to better our world through valuable research and innovative thinking. This inter-disciplinary conference seeks to examine issues related broadly to women and creativity and to bring together faculty and advanced students interested in sharing research on women in the arts, literature and sciences. We invite proposals from literature, visual and performing arts, philosophy, religion, law, social studies, anthropology, sciences, and public health.
Possible themes:
- Literature by women authors
- Women artists, women in the arts
- The Muse
- Creativity transmitted by women
- Representations of women authors or artists in literature, visual arts, popular culture
- Women as promoters of scientific progress
- Women in modernity
- Women in education/pedagogy
- Women and nursing
- Social/Historical perspectives
We invite faculty interested in the conference to submit 300-word abstracts for individual papers on these subjects or other related themes. Advanced students should submit both a 100-word abstract, and an 8-10-page paper. Submissions should be sent by August 15, 2011 to womenscreativityconference@byu.edu.
Submissions should include: a) author(s), b) academic affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) (for students) an 8-10 page paper. E-mails should include in the subject box: WSC Abstract Submission.
Each presenter will have 20 minutes for the presentation, followed by 10 minutes for discussions. Selected papers may be developed for publication in a themed hard copy volume.
By ChristopherJune 6, 2011
(cross-posted at Religion in American History)
Over at Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought‘s website, the editors have posted a discussion (moderated by Susanna Morrill, associate professor of religious studies at Lewis and Clark College) between noted historians and scholars of religion Richard Lyman Bushman and Robert Orsi. Bushman and Orsi reflect on the potential Orsi’s approach to “supernatural presence” and “abundant events” in modern Catholicism holds for scholars of Mormonism.
Continue Reading
By ChristopherMay 27, 2011
Below are this year’s Mormon History Association award winners. Juvenile Instructor bloggers are identified in blue.
__________________________
Continue Reading
By Jared TMay 27, 2011
I submitted the following abstract in response to MHA?s call for papers for the 2011 conference, underway as we speak. I was pleased to receive notice that my proposal had been accepted, but in the time between submission and acceptance, circumstances had changed. My family was now expecting a new arrival, due May 23, 2011 (he arrived a week early?welcome, Hyrum!). Since the due date was the very week of MHA, I declined acceptance, and I?m jealously following reports of those who are attending. Here is the abstract:
Continue Reading
By May 18, 2011
With the participation of a host of notable scholars (and including a number of JIers), this looks like it’s going to be an amazing event.
Continue Reading
By Jared TMay 12, 2011
I confess to having been slightly confused about exactly what has been published in the JSP and I may be the only one, but just in case I’m not, I thought I’d put up this short summary of what we have to date. With the very recent addition of two volumes, the fine scholars at the JSP continue their excellent work.
Continue Reading
By Jared TMay 11, 2011
Dear MHA Members,
For the past three years Patricia Lyn Scott has served the Mormon History Association, first as Co-Executive Director and then as Executive Director, just the most visible period of her decades of dedicated service to the organization as a member of councils, boards, and committees. As Pat concludes her three-year service as Executive Editor, we, her current Board colleagues, express our heartfelt appreciation for Pat’s significant contribution to the advancement and perpetuation of the Association. Her term as Executive Director will end later in the summer on July 31, 2011, consistent with her original appointment, after directing the work for the imminent St. George Conference. Along with her notable work on the earlier Sacramento, Springfield, and Independence conferences, as well as the 2012 Calgary conference, her kindly manner and friendly cheer have helped MHA in equally important ways. We wish Pat well in her current and future scholarly projects, which are several.
Continue Reading
By KrisMay 10, 2011
On December 11, 1917, William Smart recorded in his diary, ?Wife and I are fasting today. I bathed and thoroughly then anointed myself from head to foot with consecrated oil after praying to the Father and presenting this for purpose of further cleansing and as a token to present myself clean before him.? The many entries in Smart?s diary as well as those of hundreds of others Latter-day Saints illustrate how ritual objects can be a primary form of evidence for understanding religion as lived experience and sheds light on what believers do with material things.
Continue Reading
By Steve FlemingMay 6, 2011
In a previous post, I mentioned a sort of revelation I had while reading Brooke’s Refiner’s Fire. ?Wait, Steve,? the Spirit said, ?don?t write this book off. You have to understand a few things. What Brooke is talking about here are ?temple? or esoteric truths that are by nature difficult to verbalize. Such ideas have been passed through the ages from original pure sources and had thus become somewhat corrupted. These factors make what Brooke is talking about not so easily recognizable or understood. Furthermore, don?t pretend that you understand what the temple is about. So read the book with an open mind. You?re going to spend the rest of your life trying to figure this stuff out.? Or something like that.
Since working on that issues the last ten years, I’ve wondered what those “pure sources” were: “primitive Christianity,” Moses, Abraham, Enoch?
Continue Reading
Recent Comments
Glen Larson on CFP: Book of Mormon: “Please add me to your mailing list. Thanks”
Mark Staker on Legacies in Mormon Studies: “Jenny was always generous in sharing her knowledge. She was not only an exceptional educator (who also taught her colleagues along the way), but she…”
Gary Bergera on Legacies in Mormon Studies: “Jenny's great. Thanks for posting this.”
Kathy Cardon on Legacies in Mormon Studies: “I worked in the Church's Historical department when Jenny was in the Museum. I always enjoyed our interactions. Reading this article has been a real…”
Don Tate on Legacies in Mormon Studies: “Very well done and richly deserved! I am most proud of Jenny and how far she has come with her life, her scholarship, and her…”
Ben P on Legacies in Mormon Studies: “My favorite former boss and respected current historian!”