An Introduction to Joseph Smith Papers Project Documents, Volume 9

Joseph Smith’s attention to his own day-to-day activities ebbed and flowed throughout his fourteen years of religious leadership. The final three years of his life mark the high point of his documentary record. In Documents, Volume 9 of the Joseph Smith Papers, historians and editors Alex Smith, Christian K. Heimburger, and Christopher Blythe provide invaluable insight and background on 102 documents created between December 1841 and April 1842. As the editors note in their introduction, this volume captures less than six months of Smith’s life, “and no subsequent volume in [the Documents] series will capture more than half a year of Smith’s activities.”[1]

Smith created a large number of documents during this period, at least in comparison to previous times in his life, owing to several circumstances. Latter-day Saints enjoyed a season of relative peace during this time frame, which allowed for physical improvements to the city and a steady trickle of immigrants gathering to Nauvoo. Stability brought innovation. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints expanded its own organization, most notable among them being the Nauvoo Female Relief Society.

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Editorial Assistant (One-Year CONTINGENT)- Joseph Smith Papers Project

The Joseph Smith Papers Project is looking to fill two editorial assistant positions. See job posting below:

UNITED STATES | UT-Salt Lake City
ID 245661, Type: Temporary Full-Time
POSTING INFO
Posting Dates: 10/23/2019 – 11/06/2019
Job Family: Editorial, Writing & Language
Department: Church History Department

PURPOSES

The purpose of this job is to assist the Church History Department in helping God’s children make and keep sacred covenants—specifically by helping prepare Church history materials for publication.

RESPONSIBILITIES

The Church History Department seeks an Editorial Assistant to help with the important work of publishing The Joseph Smith Papers and other department publications intended for scholars and/or members of the Church. This is a temporary, one-year position, with the possibility of being extended for an additional year based on performance and need. The Editorial Assistant will work on the editorial team as part of a large team of historians, archivists, and other editors. The primary responsibility of the Editorial Assistant will be checking facts, sources, and source citations for print and web publication. In this capacity, the Editorial Assistant checks facts for accuracy; analyzes sources to determine whether they have been used appropriately; checks quotations from original sources, making sure spelling, punctuation, and capitalization are correct; makes and files copies of sources; uses a number of databases and other resources to find sources; formats citations according to the Chicago Manual of Style and internal style guides; and corresponds with historians and editors through multiple correction cycles. Other responsibilities of the Editorial Assistant may include proofreading, copyediting, coding documents in the project’s XML database, and assisting with producing transcripts of documents. This is a great opportunity to participate in various aspects of the publishing process, to hone your skills, and to learn more about Church history.

QUALIFICATIONS

Bachelor’s degree in English or related field
College-level coursework in editing preferred
Some professional editing experience preferred
Copyediting and proofreading ability
Familiarity with Chicago Manual of Style (seventeenth edition)
Ability to research in nineteenth-century sources; experience working with primary sources a plus
Ability to work collaboratively with a wide variety of people
Ability to give scrupulous attention to detail and sustain concentration for long periods of time with the highest level of accuracy
Ability to perform repetitive tasks
Ability to manage time effectively, be dependable, and regularly meet deadlines
Ability to learn new technology and processes
Must be a critical thinker and have a natural curiosity
Experience with text markup languages (such as XML or HTML) and software (especially Oxygen) a plus
Knowledge of early Church history
WORTHINESS QUALIFICATION

Must be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and currently temple worthy.

POSTING NOTICE/MORE INFO.

Please Note: All positions are subject to close without notice.

Find out more about the many benefits of Church Employment at http://careers.churchofjesuschrist.org.

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CFP at BYU Studies: Evolution and Faith

Many thanks to Ben Spackman for passing this on to us! His bio can be found at the bottom of this post.

We are delighted to invite you to contribute to a BYU Studies Quarterly special issue on the thoughtful integration of evolution and faith. BYU Studies publishes scholarship within a restored gospel of Jesus Christ context. Submissions are invited from all scholars who seek truth “by study and also by faith” (D&C 88:118), discern the harmony between revelation and research, value both academic and spiritual inquiry, and recognize that knowledge without charity is nothing (1 Cor. 13:2).

In this special issue we seek to faithfully explore issues related to biological evolution and Latter-day Saint belief and practice. We are soliciting articles on any issues related to this topic, including but not limited to: interpretations and contexts of Genesis (including Moses and Abraham), 2 Nephi 2:22, Doctrine & Covenants 77:6–7, 101:32-34, and related passages; hermeneutical and exegetical history; Latter-day Saint intellectual history within American contexts (e.g., the Fundamentalist/Modernist controversy); historical, contextual, and intellectual factors influencing Latter-day Saint interpretations of scripture and interpretive assumptions; religious and scientific epistemologies; the historical Adam and Eve; the nature of science; misconceptions about evolution (e.g., “the Second Law of Thermodynamics disproves evolution”); approaches to evolutionary pedagogy; how evidence of evolution does not necessarily threaten a gospel perspective; and methods for reconciliation.

We are issuing an open call for abstract submissions. If you have an idea for a manuscript that you believe would fit into this special issue, please email an abstract (1,000 words or fewer) to submissions@byu.edu by February 1, 2020.

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CALL FOR APPLICANTS—2020 Summer Seminar on Latter-day Saint Culture

“The Restoration and the Arts: Theory, Practice, Intersections”
Brigham Young University
June 8 – July 14, 2020

In the summer of 2020, the Neal A. Maxwell Institute at Brigham Young University, with support from the Mormon Scholars Foundation, will sponsor a summer seminar for graduate students and other qualified individuals on “The Restoration and the Arts: Theory, Practice, Intersections.”

About the Seminar

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An Overview of Journal of Mormon History 45, no. 4

The latest issue of the Journal of Mormon History hit my mailbox last week. As always, it’s chocked full of valuable archival-based research and helpful book reviews. Here’s a quick overview of its contents.

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Reassessing the Classics: Armand Mauss’s THE ANGEL AND THE BEEHIVE (part 3 of 3)

For the past several days, the Juvenile Instructor has examined the work of the sociologist Armand Mauss, a pioneering figure in Mormon studies, under the banner of our occasional series “Reassessing the Classics.” This is the last of three posts dealing with Mauss’s landmark 1994 book THE ANGEL AND THE BEEHIVE: THE MORMON STRUGGLE WITH ASSIMILATION (University of Illinois Press). I wrote it.

I first encountered The Angel and the Beehive in the early years of my graduate school training—not in readings for a course or recommendations from a professor, but in a way far more glancing and tangential (as so many of the best things in academic research develop). I was working on a project about miracles in Mormonism, and it suddenly seemed as though it would be useful to me to know whether or not Mormons commonly talked about such things in the regular monthly testimony meetings held in every Mormon congregation.

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Reassessing the Classics: Armand Mauss’s THE ANGEL AND THE BEEHIVE (part 2 of 3)

For the next several days, the Juvenile Instructor will examine the work of the sociologist Armand Mauss, a pioneering figure in Mormon studies, under the banner of our occasional series “Reassessing the Classics.” For the next three days, several scholars will examine Mauss’s landmark 1994 book THE ANGEL AND THE BEEHIVE: THE MORMON STRUGGLE WITH ASSIMILATION (University of Illinois Press). The first of these went up Monday, October 14. Today, Jana Riess, author of many well-regarded books on Mormonism, including the important THE NEXT MORMONS: HOW MILLENNIALS ARE CHANGING THE LDS CHURCH (Oxford, 2019).

Recently, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints unveiled the first peek at its new global youth program, which will provide activities and instruction for Saints from ages 8 to 18. As I have been reading about the new initiative, one thought kept going through my mind: Is this a sign of retrenchment or assimilation?*

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Reassessing the Classics: Armand Mauss’s THE ANGEL AND THE BEEHIVE (part 1 of 3)

For the next several days, the Juvenile Instructor will examine the work of the sociologist Armand Mauss, a pioneering figure in Mormon studies, under the banner of our occasional series “Reassessing the Classics.” For the next three days, several scholars will examine Mauss’s landmark 1994 book THE ANGEL AND THE BEEHIVE: THE MORMON STRUGGLE WITH ASSIMILATION (University of Illinois Press). First: Gary and Gordon Shepherd, sociologists in their own right and the authors of a number of well-regarded works in Mormon studies, including A KINGDOM TRANSFORMED: EARLY MORMONISM AND THE MODERN LDS CHURCH (2nd edition, University of Utah Press, 2015).

            Armand Mauss’s The Angel and The Beehive: The Mormon Struggle with Assimilation was published in 1994 by the University of Illinois Press.  Angel and the Beehive quickly became a landmark work in Mormon studies that continues to be referenced by scholars of contemporary Mormonism to this day.  This was Armand’s first, full-fledged book—one that had been simmering on the backburner of his mind for 25 years.  In it, Armand applied the sociological notion of assimilation and the economics notion of retrenchment to show how the late 20^th Century LDS Church was attempting to apply the brakes to liberalizing compromises in belief and practice that had been made in the early and middle decades of the 20^th Century. 

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Q&A with Taylor Petrey, editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought

Dr. Taylor Petrey was recently named editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. We are grateful he took time to answer our questions!

Taylor Petrey is Associate Professor and Religion and Chair of the Religion Department at Kalamazoo College. Dr. Petrey received his ThD and MTS from Harvard Divinity School in New Testament and Early Christianity and BA from Pace University in Philosophy and Religious Studies. He teaches courses in ancient Christianity and ancient Judaism, including the sacred texts that comprise the Bible for both traditions.  His teaching and research explore the use and meaning of the Bible, early Christian thought, and the history of gender, sexuality, and kinship in Christianity.

• What is your vision for Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought?

Dialogue is a hub for Mormon Studies scholarship, events, and news. For over 50 years, Dialogue has been the premiere journal in Mormon Studies. It has published some of the most important articles, personal essays, poetry, fiction, and art. Dialogue has also evolved in recent years to offer new products. We have an excellent newsletter, podcast, and social media feeds on Facebook and Twitter. These forms of engagement give our audience more ways to access great commentary on the past, present, and future of the LDS tradition.

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The Mechanics of Applying to MHA: The CFP, Writing Abstracts, and Forming Panels

It’s hard to believe that we are only a few weeks away from the Mormon History Association conference deadline! Anne Berryhill, our committee, and I are anxiously awaiting when we get to look at proposals and fully plan out the 2020 conference. I suspect that I’m preaching to the choir when I tell blog readers that MHA is one of the best conferences out there. It’s well-attended, features fantastic scholarship, and I always walk away feeling academically rejuvenated. As Ben once wrote, one of the best things about MHA is that people show up to panels. Many conferences have low session turnout, but that’s an exception rather than the rule at MHA. I remember the first time I presented at a national conference of another organization and feeling disappointed that only a dozen people attended my paper. Accordingly, the Q&A portions are also rich and engaging (although, like all conferences, there can be some wacky questions!).

So how do you get to the point where you’re presenting at MHA? How do you submit a paper proposal? And, ideally, how do you submit a panel proposal? Like many things in academia, folks are often told to do something but specific processes are not fully explained. In this post, I hope to make the process less opaque. I will explain why you should submit to the MHA Annual Conference, how to “read” a Call for Papers, how to write a good abstract, how to write a paper proposal, and how to write a panel proposal. The process isn’t complicated, but I remember well not feeling confident about sending in a proposal.

Important Consideration

This is important to put at the beginning of the post: not everyone is accepted to every conference to which they apply. I remember receiving a rejection letter from MHA and wondering if that was the end of my academic career. Thankfully, wise mentors like Ken Alford and Spencer Fluhman told me that receiving a rejection is a part of the process. Sometimes a proposal doesn’t “fit” with the program. “Fit” is a nebulous term, but it’s a complicated process to balance a conference lineup with a variety of topics, themes, formats, and so on. A rejection says nothing about your intellectual capabilities or your place in the field of Mormon history. Everyone from Laurel Thatcher Ulrich to the least-experienced undergraduate will face rejection in their scholarly career.

Why Should I Submit to the Mormon History Association Conference?

Conference participation is the lowest bar-to-entry into the scholarly world (Ardis Parshall has written about MHA being “academic vs. scholarly” here). There is room for dozens of speakers at MHA’s annual conference, for instance, versus roughly 20 articles published per year in the Journal of Mormon History. Conferences give you a chance to show off your research, meet with others who are interested in Mormon history, and make connections with others.

MHA is the friendliest conference I’ve ever attended. It’s a collegial environment with smart people who know the field. You couldn’t ask for a better place to receive feedback on your work and sharpen your future research and writing questions.

How Do I “Read” the Call for Papers?

First, take a look at the Call for Papers or CFP. You can pull out important information from a relatively short document (most important details in bold).

• “The 55th Annual Conference of the Mormon History Association will be held June 4-7, 2020, in Rochester/Palmyra, New York.”
  • Make sure you can attend the conference!
• “The 2020 conference theme, “Visions, Restoration, and Movements” commemorates the 200th anniversary of Mormonism’s birth in upstate New York. Joseph Smith’s religious movement has grown from a fledgling frontier faith to a diverse set of religious and cultural traditions functioning across the globe.
  • Having a paper that addresses the theme in some way, and/or that addresses the 200^th anniversary will fit in with the conference committee’s vision for the program.
• The Rochester/Palmyra conference will be an opportunity to walk where Joseph Smith, Susan B. Anthony, Frederick Douglass, and other such luminaries walked, a place to be reminded of the visions, visionaries, and movements that came out of western New York in the 19th century.
  • Papers that address secondary themes like suffrage and abolition are likely to score well when the program committee reads your abstract.
• Though the program committee will consider individual papers, it will give preference to proposals for complete sessions, whose participants reflect MHA’s ongoing commitment to diversity and inclusion.
  • It’s easier to be accepted as a panel than as individual papers. Having women, people of color, and folks from disparate institutions reflects well on your panel for several reasons. First, it shows that you worked to find a panel that fits well together. Second, the panel will address different topics or themes according to different researcher’s questions.
• Please send 1) a 300-word abstract for each paper or presentation and 2) a one-page CV for each presenter, including email contact information. Full session proposals should include the session title and a 150-word abstract outlining the session’s theme, along with a confirmed chair and/or commentator, if applicable. Previously published papers are not eligible for presentation at MHA.  Limited financial assistance for travel and lodging at the conference is available to volunteers, and to some student and international presenters. Those who wish to apply for this funding may do so upon acceptance of their proposed presentation.
• The deadline for proposals is November 1, 2019. Send proposals to program co-chairs Joseph Stuart and Anne Berryhill at mharochester2020@gmail.com. Acknowledgment of receipt will be sent immediately. Notification of acceptance/rejection will be made by January 15, 2020.
  • Make sure you follow directions! Write your abstract(s), include a CV, and list chairs and commentators.
  • If applicable, be sure to apply for travel funding if your paper/panel is accepted (the program committee and MHA’s executive director won’t know how funding will work until after the committee is set).
  • Hit your deadlines!
  • Don’t expect to hear back from MHA until January 15, 2020. If you haven’t heard by January 16, 2020, THEN send a note to the panel co-chairs’ email.

How Do I Write a Quality Abstract?

Using the information above, you can now craft your abstract, meaning your proposal with tentative ideas about your findings. You don’t have to have your paper complete before submitting; you’ll have time to write it afterward. Still, you should have a solid hypothesis for what you expect to find in your archival research and perusal of the secondary literature.

Remember that you only have 20 minutes to present. Focus in one a single idea that you hope to develop and explain to your audience. Here’s one way to go about it (and here’s an example of mine from a previous MHA conference):

• Set the scene (who, what, when, where, why)
• Briefly explain what others have said about your topic (if they have said anything)
• “Based on [primary sources, data, etc.]” or “through an analysis of [events, persons, ideas]” I will show [argument].
• Ask a friend, mentor, or colleague to take a look at your proposal to make sure that it’s clear and concise.

How Do I Submit a Paper Proposal?

Write your abstract and send to mharochester2020@gmail.com by 11:59 PM on November 1, 2019. You’ll receive confirmation that the committee received it—if you haven’t received one send a follow up!

How Do I Form a Panel?

This can be especially daunting for new scholars or those who haven’t previously attended MHA. You can find those who have published in your area of interest at mormonhistory.byu.edu using a search term like “Japan” or “Book of Mormon” or “Civil War.” You can also consult womeninmormonstudies.org or globalmormonstudies.org to find others to team up with. Finally, this Google Doc lists the names of those looking for panelists with their topics and how many panelists they need and has their best mode of contact included.

Most people are flattered to be asked to join a panel. If they are rude then you didn’t want to present with them, anyway.

How Do I Submit a Panel Proposal?

Compile abstracts, cvs, and other relevant information and send to mharochester2020@gmail.com by 11:59 PM on November 1, 2019. You’ll receive confirmation that the committee received it—if you haven’t received one send a follow up. Also, be sure to actually contact your chair or commentator and confirm they can take on the role. Don’t put people forward for work they haven’t agreed to do!

Other Resources to Consult:

North Carolina State’s “Tips for Writing Conference Proposals”

Ben P’s “Proposing Panels for MHA’s Annual Conference: A Few Thoughts”

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