By ChristopherJuly 6, 2014
We’re back with another weekly roundup of links from the world of Mormon Studies. Let’s jump into it:
Alex Beam’s examination of Joseph Smith’s murder continues to garner attention. Check out the Salt Lake Tribune‘s coverage, including Peggy Fletcher Stack’s write up and Jennifer Napier-Pierce’s video interview with the author at Trib Talk.
In other news, the LDS Church History Library celebrated Canada Day by posting this fantastic souvenir card from the dedication of the Cardston Temple on their facebook page. Moving even further beyond U.S. borders, Al Jazeera America examined “The rise of Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Caucasus.” It’s a fascinating read, and might provide some fodder for researchers interested in digging further.
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By J StuartJune 22, 2014
After a few weeks’ hiatus, we’re back and better than ever! Let’s go:
In case you don’t have Facebook/Twitter/receive a newspaper/talk to Mormons for any length of time, two high-profile Mormons (Kate Kelly and John Dehlin) are facing church discipline for “apostasy.” Here’s the most noteworthy articles on the subject:
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By Mees TielensJune 1, 2014
I have a very short MSWR for you today.
The Salt Lake Tribune has a piece on what, exactly, makes Mormonism (among other faiths) attractive to people in Ghana.
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By ChristopherMay 25, 2014
We’re back with another installment of your weekly roundup of links to articles, blog posts, and other notices in the world of Mormon Studies.
The Boston Globe ran an article on Harvard’s participation in the online course (MOOC) craze. Of interest to JI readers is Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s participation. Dr. Ulrich’s class, “Tangible Things,” is a material history course that “will teach history through artifacts in Harvard?s museum collections to an expected 10,000 students.” Ulrich’s fellow Massachusetts Mormon Mitt Romney also made headlines recently when he weighed in on Wolfeboro, New Hampshire Police Commissioner Robert Copeland’s use of a racial slur to describe President Obama. Nothing particularly Mormon about Romney’s comments, but scholars of Mormon and race may want to take note.
Meanwhile, Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies at CGU Patrick Mason was named a Fulbright Scholar. CGU’s website has all of the details about his upcoming “travel to the West University of Timisoara in Romania, where he will teach courses in American history, politics, and culture.” Congrats, Patrick!
Over at Rational Faiths, Laurel Sandberg-Armstrong summarizes the recent changes to Young Women lessons.
Those of you in Salt Lake will want to take note of Chad Orton’s June 12 lecture on George Q. Cannon’s mission to Hawaii at the Assembly Hall on Temple Square. Orton helped edit GQC’s Hawaii mission journals (which are now complete and set to be published in early July!). Greg Kofford Books posted an interview with Joe Spencer, whose For Zion: A Mormon Theology of Hope, is imminently forthcoming as well.
The Center for Religion & American Culture at IUPUI is hosting a conference on The Bible in American Life. The entire program looks fantastic, and JI readers will be particularly interested in Amy Easton-Flake’s presentation on “Biblical Women in the Woman?s Exponent: The Bible in Nineteenth-Century Mormonism.” Over at the Religion in American History blog, Paul Putz posted Part II of his preview of forthcoming books in American Religious History this year, a list that includes Terryl Givens’s Wrestling the Angel and Thomas Carter’s “biography of the cultural landscape of western LDS settlements,” Building Zion.
Part I of Putz’s list, posted in January, included David Howlett’s long-anticipated Kirtland Temple: Biography of a Sacred Space. That volume is scheduled to be released on Friday this week (!!), so hurry up and order your copy now.
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By ChristopherFebruary 16, 2014
Missed out on the latest news in the world of Mormon Studies? We’re here for you and back with another weekly roundup of relevant links. Let’s get to it:
Over at Rational Faiths, Connell O’Donovan writes about three newly discovered early black Mormon women. The discovery—incredibly important to recovering the African American presence in early Mormonism in all of its facets—is based on careful and surely time-consuming analysis of personal papers and printed sources.
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By David G.February 9, 2014
Another week, another edition of the Mormon Studies Weekly Roundup!
There were significant new developments at church headquarters. First, it has been reported that the church’s Seminaries and Institutes department was revising its curriculum, in part to incorporate insights from the Joseph Smith Papers Project and the revamped Gospel Topics page on lds.org. The first installment in this revised curriculum was released this week, with an updated Church History and Doctrine and Covenants manual. The folks at FAIR Mormon are pleased with the results. Second, the Young Women organization announced a new board that will include substantial representation from women outside the United States. The Relief Society and Primary organizations are expected to form similar boards to better meet the needs of the international church. Additionally, training sessions for these organizations, which have traditionally been held only in Salt Lake City, will be made available via the internet. The Research Information Division at church headquarters is looking for a full-time researcher with graduate training in the social sciences.
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By Ryan T.February 2, 2014
A diverse and plentiful array of material in this edition of Mormon Studies Weekly Roundup. Take a look at the following morsels:
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By ChristopherJanuary 12, 2014
For you Sunday morning reading pleasure, it’s another Mormon Studies Weekly Roundup. Here we go:
On the academic front, join us in congratulating our friends over at the Religion in the American West blog, who were successful in achieving group status in the American Academy of Religion. Also of interest to those readers who study the American West — the Montana Historical Society has launched a website to commemorate the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in the state. Check out a detailed list of features here. Meanwhile, The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists has released the program for its forthcoming conference at UNC-Chapel Hill (March 13-16), which includes the following panel of potential interest to JI readers:
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By KrisJanuary 5, 2014
Here is the first Mormon Studies Roundup of the year — a summary of news, research and announcements.
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By AmandaDecember 15, 2013
My world is crashing down around me. Things I never thought would happen are happening: A federal court has declared that Utah?s anti-polygamy law is unconstitutional and the LDS Church has produced a statement admitting that the priesthood ban was largely the result of nineteenth-century racism. The Salt Lake Tribune lauded the church for its decision to publish the essay as part of a series answering questions about its beliefs. In Religion and Politics, Max Mueller was similarly optimistic about the effects of the essay. He sees the document as the repudiating the church?s racist past and officially addressing the ban?s origins in statements by leaders like Brigham Young. For him, it is a monumental document that represents the beginnings of a sea change in the church?s positions on race. Other commenters have been less optimistic. Gina Colvin argued on her blog that the priesthood ban and ideas that African Americans had been less valiant in the preexistence had been taught as doctrine and as such, deserved to be addressed in General Conference rather than in a letter hidden on the church?s website. In a podcast with Dan Wotherspoon, Margaret Young, and Janan Graham, she further argued that the essay had been written from the perspective of the institutional church and failed to provide readers with the stories and voices of those who had been marginalized by the priesthood ban. Colvin has not been the statement?s only critic. At Young Mormon Feminists, Nick Lindsey suggests that the document creates a fiction that church leaders were always working towards racial equality rather than participating in and furthering racist discourses that relegated African Americans to the margins of Mormon society. KUTV released a fairly tempered article suggesting that the church?s statement was the result of a desire to answer questions that were arising because of information available on the Internet. Although the article did not address claims that the document represented a change in the church?s position on the priesthood ban, its analysis was less jubilant some of the others that have addressed the issue this week.
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