The Joseph Smith
Historic Site preserves the properties and memories of Joseph Smith Jr.,
founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, his father, Joseph Smith Sr., and
son, Joseph Smith III. The site houses many original structures from the 1840s,
as well as the Smith Family Cemetery, final resting place of Joseph and Emma
Smith, Hyrum Smith, Joseph Smith Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith, and numerous other family
members and friends. The Joseph Smith Historic Site is part of the Nauvoo
National Historic Landmark District.
Consider an
internship in Nauvoo, Illinois, at the Joseph Smith Historic Site, for a
rewarding and fun experience where you will:
The Mormon History Association (MHA) is accepting submissions for a poster session, to be held in the Riverside Convention Center Exhibit Hall during the 55th annual conference in Rochester/Palmyra, New York, June 4-7, 2020. We welcome proposals that address the conference theme, “Visions, Restoration, and Movements,” but all proposals will receive equal consideration. Please visit https://mormonhistoryassociation.org/2020-conference to view the conference call for papers. This poster session offers participants the opportunity to discuss and answer questions about their work in a relatively informal, interactive setting. This format is particularly useful for works-in-progress and for projects with visual and material evidence. Presenters must be MHA members, register for and attend the meeting, and be available for a two-hour poster viewing session and reception during the conference, date and time TBD. MHA will waive the conference registration fee for all student poster presenters.
The submission deadline for poster proposals is February 1, 2020. Notifications of acceptance or rejection will be sent March 1, 2020. Proposals will be evaluated on the persuasiveness of the abstract and the project’s connection to major questions and issues in Mormon history and the conference themes. MHA allows a maximum of four presenters per poster. All posters must be 36 inches x 48 inches. We will provide cardboard, binder clips, and easels for those who request them. Presenters are responsible for all other materials, including the printed poster itself. Accepted posters will be on display for the entirety of the conference. Please send your proposal to mharochester2020@gmail.com. Contact program co-chairs Anne Berryhill or Joseph Stuart at this email address if you have any questions.
SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS
In a single PDF file, please include the following information for each presenter: -Name -Title/Position -Affiliation (if applicable) -Email -Phone Number -Bio (no more than 100 words) In the same PDF file, also include: -Poster Title -Poster Abstract: In no more than 200 words, describe the project that the poster will focus on and how you plan to present the project. Outline the research topic, themes, or questions, and the design and materials of your study. Explain and justify the proposed poster components (e.g. text, images, other graphics, tables etc.). Briefly anticipate the results or conclusion.
The Mormon Studies Initiative at the University of Utah is pleased to announce a call for applications for the Graduate Research Fellowship in Mormon Studies at the Tanner Humanities Center for the 2020-2021 academic year. Applications are due 2 March 2020. Application material can be found at this link: https://history.utah.edu/undergraduate/mormon-studies-fellowship.php#uu-top-target
The first of its kind in the nation, the Tanner Humanities Center’s Mormon Studies fellowship provides a doctoral student funds to spend a year researching the history, beliefs, and culture of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its members, or any religious group that traces its roots to Joseph Smith Jr. This fellowship is open to all dissertation level students of the Mormon Experience from any university in the United States or from around the world. Areas of focus include, but are not limited to: Theology, History, Sociology, Economics, Literature, Philosophy, and Political Science.
In Nauvoo, Joseph Smith revealed a new temple liturgy and cosmology that incorporated the idea of sealing people together into a durable and eternal network of heaven. There were a lot of loose ends in the practical reality of sealing practice when he was killed. The Quorum of the Twelve instituted the practice of “adoption” (also sometimes referred to as the “law of adoption”)—sealing men and women to people other than their biological parents—when the temple opened for use by the Saints. This practice endured until 1894, when the church president Wilford Woodruff received a revelation mostly ending the practice. [n1]
The Woman’s Exponent Project is a collaborative digital humanities and public history project between the University of Utah and BYU that explores the content of the Woman’s Exponent (1872-1914) that captures the fascinating, complex, and even contradictory history of suffrage in Utah. The Woman’s Exponent Project aligns with a unique moment in time, as Utahns prepare to celebrate the 150th anniversary of a Utah woman casting the first female ballot in the nation in 1870, a full 50 years before the 19th Amendment guaranteed universal women’s suffrage in America.
I didn’t know what Mormon Studies was in December 2009. Sure,
I had just taken a course on American Christianity at BYU, but it hadn’t caused
me to think much about the academic study of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints or any of the other branches that connect to Joseph Smith’s
religious ideas. Now, a decade later, it strikes me that the field has risen
considerably in the eyes of the academy and in the estimation of non-academic
Latter-day Saints.
I believe the strength of Mormon Studies publications and the venues in which they appear is one of the most important developments of the past ten years. We’ve passed the point where a press will take on a Mormon Studies project just for book sales. Books on Mormonism are now published regularly by university press catalogues, and not just traditional Mormon Studies powerhouses like the University of Illinois Press, the University of Utah Press, or the University of North Carolina Press, but with Harvard University Press, Liveright/Norton, Oxford University Press, University of Nebraska Press, and the University of Chicago Press.
Archival research is sometimes compared to the effort of
putting together a jigsaw puzzle—a puzzle where you have to find the pieces, you
have no photo reference of the actual puzzle, and there are zero edge pieces
and certainly no corner pieces. There are obviously parts of the comparison
that don’t work, but it is apt for those needing a crash course in archival
understanding.
I spend my fair share of time in an archives (it helps to be
employed in one). I have a master’s degree in library science with an archival
concentration and I just finished a dissertation on the history of the nineteenth-century
archives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In other words, I
spend a lot of time thinking about archives and their creation and use by
today’s scholars. I jokingly tell people that I’m more comfortable with dead
people and their records than I am with living people (the joke, of course, is
that I’m not joking).
This position will assist the Church History Library in processing, cataloging, arranging, housing, and indexing Church History Library archival collections in order to assist the Church History Department in its purpose to help God’s children keep and make sacred covenants. Successful applicants will work at the direction of Church History Specialists to create bibliographic records that will assist internal and external researchers in locating and using archival collections.
Every year I look forward to seeing which books will be published (you can read my recap of the best books and articles of 2019 HERE). The list isn’t comprehensive—many books don’t have listings on press websites quite yet. Nevertheless, I hope that I’ve highlighted many of the books Mormon historians are anxiously waiting to have their hands on in the next twelve months (and that you’ll send me information on books I’ve missed!). All quotations are from the Press’s website (when available) and all links are to the publisher’s website (where available).
Historians exist in a world of naming (Mormon Historians doubly so!).1 But, what’s in a name? Historian John O’Malley offers two reflections on this question, one a little naïve and another a little wiser. The first:
“Sometimes very little. A rose still smells as sweet. Even designations for historical phenomena like ‘the Middle Ages’ that were once loaded with prejudices lose them through repeated usage. They become the equivalent of dead metaphors, where the image loses its punch. Is it not further true that all such historical constructs are imperfect, not much more than pointers to what can never be fully grasped by them, impositions on a fluid reality that they can never adequately capture? What difference does it make, then, what we call the Catholic side of the early modern period? Should we not stop worrying about labels, mere terms of convenience, and get on with the real business of history?”2
Steve Fleming on BH Roberts on Plato: “Interesting, Jack. But just to reiterate, I think JS saw the SUPPRESSION of Platonic ideas as creating the loss of truth and not the addition.…”
Jack on BH Roberts on Plato: “Thanks for your insights--you've really got me thinking.
I can't get away from the notion that the formation of the Great and Abominable church was an…”
Steve Fleming on BH Roberts on Plato: “In the intro to DC 76 in JS's 1838 history, JS said, "From sundry revelations which had been received, it was apparent that many important…”
Jack on BH Roberts on Plato: “"I’ve argued that God’s corporality isn’t that clear in the NT, so it seems to me that asserting that claims of God’s immateriality happened AFTER…”
Steve Fleming on Study and Faith, 5:: “The burden of proof is on the claim of there BEING Nephites. From a scholarly point of view, the burden of proof is on the…”
Eric on Study and Faith, 5:: “But that's not what I was saying about the nature of evidence of an unknown civilization. I am talking about linguistics, not ruins. …”
Recent Comments
Steve Fleming on BH Roberts on Plato: “Interesting, Jack. But just to reiterate, I think JS saw the SUPPRESSION of Platonic ideas as creating the loss of truth and not the addition.…”
Jack on BH Roberts on Plato: “Thanks for your insights--you've really got me thinking. I can't get away from the notion that the formation of the Great and Abominable church was an…”
Steve Fleming on BH Roberts on Plato: “In the intro to DC 76 in JS's 1838 history, JS said, "From sundry revelations which had been received, it was apparent that many important…”
Jack on BH Roberts on Plato: “"I’ve argued that God’s corporality isn’t that clear in the NT, so it seems to me that asserting that claims of God’s immateriality happened AFTER…”
Steve Fleming on Study and Faith, 5:: “The burden of proof is on the claim of there BEING Nephites. From a scholarly point of view, the burden of proof is on the…”
Eric on Study and Faith, 5:: “But that's not what I was saying about the nature of evidence of an unknown civilization. I am talking about linguistics, not ruins. …”