By JoelSeptember 1, 2010
JI bloggers invest significant amounts of time and effort in this blog, and this commitment becomes quite evident through the internal debates that sometimes occur behind the scenes as we discuss the future and purpose of this ever-changing form of new media in which we have become involved. Today we invite you behind the scenes to illustrate one of the great debates among historians today. In part, the discussions developed as many of us commented on Max’s excellent post on the proposed New York City mosque and community center, the debate about building it so close to Ground Zero, and how Mormons should react based on their shared history of religious persecution. Max adeptly historicized the issue of Mormons and the mosque in an effort to turn the overwhelming and sometimes baffling tide of Mormon opinion against its construction.
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By MaxAugust 17, 2010
After hearing this morning that Harry Reid has now entered into this vitriolic debate about the right to build a mosque (or the responsibility not to do so) where shadows of the Twin Towers once fell, my curiosity about how Mormons, both scholars and non, feel about this controversy, has bubbled over onto the virtual pages of JI.
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By Jared TJuly 29, 2010
A friend alerted me not too long ago to an effort by a local in San Antonio, Texas to document the history of the LDS Church in his city. The site is called, The Saints of San Antonio: A Video History in Their Own Words.
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By Jared TJuly 25, 2010
Read more here.
Without the full text* it is hard to assess the totality of what Elder Jensen sought to convey, but the report suggests a deviation from the standard Pioneer Day fare and an effort to reach out a hand of compassion and remembrance to those that are so often the forgotten or misremembered [see yesterday’s post by David G. on Pioneer Day and remembering/forgetting Utah’s Indian Wars] in Utah Pioneer history. One section from the report stands out to me:
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By Jared TJuly 19, 2010
The newest issue of the JMH is here. Since I don’t have a lot of time, I’ll give a taste right now of what’s in here by posting the table of contents. Forgive the watermark. I’ll have more on the content later.
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By matt b.July 13, 2010
A lot of people would say no,
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By July 7, 2010
The Mormon Scholars Foundation Summer Seminar, hosted by the Neal A. Maxwell Institute, under the direction of Richard Bushman and taught by Terryl Givens, will present the quasi-annual MSF Symposium.
Date: Thursday, July 8.
Location: Auditorium of the McKay Building, BYU Campus [Building number 59 on this map]
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By GuestJune 30, 2010
[This is a continuation of sorts of an earlier post on Native Americans and early Mormonism.–David G.]
Joseph Smith and the Code of Handsome Lake
Lori Taylor, Ph.D.
Lori Taylor has three degrees in American Studies: Ph.D. from the SUNY at Buffalo, M.A. from The George Washington University, and B.A. from Brigham Young University. Through all of those degrees, she chased down the ways people frame and reframe the cultural and historical tidbits from which they make deep meaning. The joy in historiography for Lori is the story that makes THEN interesting NOW.
In 1994, sitting in a Western-themed lodge in Billings, Montana, a friend and colleague told me a story that I spent the next several years hunting down.
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By Jared TJune 27, 2010
My parents elected to have me baptized December 23, and I also chose the date of my marriage to be December 23. I like those little numeric connections to Joseph Smith. But the one I like most is the one that was not chosen by my family or me. On June 27 I entered the MTC. It gives me pause every time.
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By SC TaysomJune 26, 2010
HBO’s popular Big Love series and David Ebershoff’s bestselling novel The 19th Wife stand as evidence that polygamy remains a perennial topic of interest for Mormons and non-Mormons alike. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that scholarly presses with heavily-Mormon themed catalogues continue to publish serious work on the subject. Utah State University Press’s excellent Life Writings of Frontier Women series has once again offered a sterling piece of documentary history with the publication of Post Manifesto Polygamy: The 1899-1904 Correspondence of Helen, Owen, and Avery Woodruff, edited by Lu Ann Taylor Snyder and Phillip A. Snyder.
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