Q&A with Richard Bennett

Kurt Manwaring published an interview with Richard Bennett at his site, From the Desk, discussing Bennett’s most recent book Temples Rising: A Heritage of Sacrifice (2019, Deseret Book).

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September 26, 2019: Lecture at the Assembly Hall

Thanks to the Joseph Smith Papers Project for sharing this event! You can sign up for the JSPP newsletter HERE.

Date: September 26, 2019
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Location: Assembly Hall (50 West South Temple, Salt Lake City, Utah) 

The Church History Department invites you to attend a special lecture entitled “Joseph Smith, The Leader.” The lecture will explore the leadership positions that Joseph Smith held in Nauvoo in 1842. The presenters, Elizabeth A. Kuehn and Alex D. Smith, will draw on examples and insights from the latest volume of The Joseph Smith Papers, Documents, Volume 9, and the forthcoming Documents, Volume 10, which will be published in spring 2020.

Joseph Smith’s leadership was a central factor in developing the Latter-day Saint community of Nauvoo, Illinois. In 1842, Smith took on new civic, ecclesiastical, and financial responsibilities in addition to those he already held. These roles ranged from becoming the city’s mayor and judge over the local courts to editing the Church’s newspaper the Times and Seasons and helping to establish the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo. The lecture will highlight these responsibilities, their significance, and how Joseph Smith’s involvement provides insights into his character and leadership style.

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News from the Mormon History Association

Here are a few highlights from the Mormon History Association’s newsletter, which you you should receive with your MHA membership.

NEW JMH EDITORS: Christopher James Blythe and Jessie L. Embry have been appointed as co-editors of the Journal of Mormon History. From the newsletter, ” As co-editors, Jessie and Chris are committed to improving the scholarly profile of the JMH. While the journal will continue to be comprised of traditional historical articles, they will expand the journal’s vision to include articles on the Mormon past from a wider range of methodologies and perspectives. They look forward to special issues devoted to a particular theme and genre, as well as new sections of the journal devoted to the analysis of historical documents, visual and material culture, and field notes. They invite and seek contributions from both seasoned and emerging scholars, including those of underrepresented groups. Do not be surprised if you hear from them in the coming months! The next four years promise great things for the JMH.”

NEW BOARD MEMBERS: “During the business luncheon, MHA members elected five new board members, including Jenny Lund as President-Elect, Sara Patterson as Liaison Chair, David Simmons as Financial Chair, and Charlotte Hansen Terry as Student Representative. One of the most exciting changes announced was the addition of a Global Outreach Chair to the MHA board. Vinna Chintaram was elected to fill this important new role. We look forward to exciting things to come from this new position.” 

FUNDRAISING FOR A JAN SHIPPS AWARD: MHA is thrilled to announce that we are raising funds to endow an article award in honor of Jan Shipps. A decades-long member of MHA and the first woman to serve as MHA President, Shipps is known to many in the organization as a friend and mentor. A pioneer of academic Mormon history, over many years her articles pushed the field in new and important directions. We feel it worthwhile to prominently feature her name when recognizing our best scholarship. An endowed award in her name will assure that MHA continues to promote and highlight the finest academic work on a yearly basis. We are pleased to report that $2,600 was raised when we announced the award at the 2019 MHA conference, and thank those who so generously donated. Please help us reach the endowment goal of $10,000. Donations may be made through MHA’s website or by mailing a check to MHA, P.O. Box 980398, Park City, Utah 84098 (write “Jan Shipps Article Award” on the memo line). For more information, or to assist in fundraising efforts for the endowment, please contact MHA Executive Director Barbara Jones Brown at barbara@mormonhistoryassociation.org.

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2020 Church History Symposium CFP: Visions and Visionaries: Joseph Smith in Comparative Contexts

Church History Symposium, 2020

Visions and Visionaries: Joseph Smith in Comparative Contexts

The Department of Church History and Doctrine at BYU and the Church History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announce the Church History Symposium, March 12–13, 2020. The symposium will convene at Brigham Young University (March 12) and at the Conference Center Theater in Salt Lake City (March 13). Keynote speakers include Sheri Dew and Richard Lyman Bushman (March 12), and President Dallin H. Oaks, First Counselor in the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (March 13).

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MHA 2020 Networking Materials

MHA submissions are due on November 1, 2019! If you’re looking for co-panelists, feel free to use this Google doc, where you can list what you’re interested in, how many panelists you need, and any other information you’d like to include. We hope that this will be used in conjunction with Women in Mormon Studies and Global Mormon Studies. If you have other organizations whose membership might be helpful for forming panels, comment on this post and I’ll add it!

Anne Berryhill and I are also happy to put folks in touch with one another and to speak about proposed panels. Our emails are available in the CFP.

2019 Book of Mormon Studies Conference Schedule

We are pleased to share details from the Third Annual Book of Mormon Studies Conference. If you’re in or near Utah State University you should consider going!

Friday, October 11

Plenary Session: Book Reviews
9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.

Details forthcoming

Concurrent Sessions
10:15 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.

Room 1

Elizabeth Fenton (University of Vermont), “Readymade Books and the Preservation of the Sacred in the Book of Mormon and the Early Church”

Joseph M. Spencer (Brigham Young University), “‘Virgins, Harlots, Brides, and Queens: Women in the Prophetic Texts of First Nephi”

Kimberly M. Berkey (Loyola University), “‘Here Is My Daughter a Maiden’: Daughters in Judges and the Book of Mormon”

Room 2

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A note on the history of back-to-school blessings

I am a practicing Latter-day Saint. I grew up practicing. One of the things that I remember from my childhood in the 1980s is when my father layed his hands on the heads of my siblings and I and blessed us at the beginning of the school year. I recently blessed my oldest child before he left for the first year of college and will bless his younger siblings in a couple of weeks. Today a friend asked me when this practice started.

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30-50 feral hogs or unruly swine?

Twitter was created for certain things, and one of those things occured last week. If you missed the twitter fracas centered on 30-50 feral hogs last week, catch up. It was good.

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Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought announces a new editor

The Dialogue Foundation’s Board of Directors is pleased to announce that Taylor Petrey, Associate Professor of Religion at Kalamazoo College, has been appointed the next editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought.

Petrey holds a BA in philosophy and religion from Pace University, and both an MTS  and a Th.D. degree from Harvard Divinity School in New Testament and Early Christianity. He joined the faculty of Kalamazoo College in 2010 and served as the Director of the Women, Gender, and Sexuality program from 2012 through 2016. He is currently chair of the Religion Department.

Petrey is the author or editor of numerous books and articles on Mormonism, gender, sexuality, and early Christian thought. His essay “Toward a Post-Heterosexual Mormon Theology” received Dialogue’s “Best Article” award in 2011 and has become one of the most downloaded and cited articles in the journal’s history.

“We are very excited that Taylor has agreed to become our next editor, said Dialogue Board chair Michael Austin. “He brings a profound understanding of some of the most crucial issues in Mormon Studies today–issues surrounding gender and sexuality, international Mormonism, interfaith connections, and inclusive theology. And he also understands what it takes to do academic publishing in the information age.”

Under Petrey’s leadership, Dialogue will enter its 54th year of publishing articles, personal essays, fiction, poetry, and sermons relating to the Mormon experience. Dialogue began publication in 1966 with Eugene England as its founding editor. Since that time, the journal has published four issues a year. 

In 2018, Dialogue moved the electronic version of its journal from a subscription-supported to a donor-supported publication model. All of its content is now free on the Internet from the moment of its publication. In 2020, Dialogue will begin partnering with the University of Illinois Press to produce the print edition of the journal and will make all of its past issues available through JSTOR and other electronic databases. 

“This is an exciting time for academic journals generally,” said BYU History Professor Rebecca de Schweinitz, a Dialogue Board member who co-chaired the search committee that recommended Petrey for the editorship. “And it is an especially exciting time for Mormon Studies. We need somebody at the helm who understands both the new audiences that have emerged and the new technologies needed to reach them. Taylor is an exemplary scholar with a deep understanding of the modern publishing world.” 

“I am thrilled to join Dialogue and to be a part of the legacy of this great journal,” says Petrey. “This journal reflects and shapes the best of Latter-day Saint thought, culture, and scholarship and I can’t wait to embark on the next phase of the LDS tradition’s premier intellectual and literary venue.” 

Petrey will replace Boyd Petersen, who has been Dialogue’s editor since 2016. Please join us in welcoming him to the team.  We appreciate your continued support of the journal.

“The spirit of murder seems to be on the increase … due to the increase in firearms”: George Q. Cannon Denounces Gun Violence, 1891

In the July 15, 1891 issue of the (original) Juvenile Instructor, Mormon apostle and editor George Q. Cannon penned an editorial entitled, “Obedience — Do not Kill.” As that title implies, Cannon’s editorial contains both advice to parents on raising obedient children (“the best family government is that in which the judgment of children is appealed to and they are shown, by kind words, that the requests made of them are for their benefit and happiness”) and a denunciation of violence and bloodshed.

Cannon’s aim is broad — he decries both murder and, in words that seem as foreign to modern Mormonism as polygamy — hunting for sport. But his primary focus is on the shedding of innocent human blood, and in light of additional mass shootings this past weekend, Cannon’s words are all too relevant:

The spirit of murder seems to be on the increase in our day. This is partly due to the increase of firearms and to their cheapness, also to the fashion which prevails in many quarters of carrying deadly weapons. The frequency with which shooting is done also has its effect to break down the feeling of sacredness which should surround human life.

George Q. Cannon, “Obedience — Do not Kill,” Juvenile Instructor 26:14 (July 15, 1891), 443

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