New Addition: Liz M.

We’re pleased to announce that Liz M., a PhD student at Claremont Graduate University, has agreed to join the Juvenile Instructor. Here is how she describes herself:

I am working on a PhD in American religious history at Claremont Graduate University. My dissertation is on women’s popular family theologies in between the world wars. One chapter will be on Mormon women. So I am interested in family religion and women’s religious history.

Please join us in welcoming Liz to the Juvenile Instructor, the best academic Mormon history blog on the interwebz since 2007!

Practicing Charity: Everyday Daughters of God

By Laura Allred Hurtado

On Monday, I attended a lecture celebrating the Relief Society Commemoration given by Sharon Eubank, Director of LDS Charities, sponsored by the Church History Department. Her comments were titled ?Matriarchy? and she indexed the many ways Mormon women have historically performed acts of charity and whose legacy of service continue to have influence on the many projects LDS charities executes today, albeit on a much grander scale.

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Gardening at Temple Square

In his introductory post to Religious “Practice” month here at JI, Ryan touched on the many ways ritual and practice informs Mormon lives, from the formal ordinances to the less formal expressions of lived religion, like hair wreaths or sacrament bread. Today’s post is about one of those informal practices, namely gardening, and more specifically, gardening at Temple Square.

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Pageants and practice

Megan Sanborn Jones is currently the coordinator for the Theatre Arts Studies program at BYU. She teaches undergraduate and graduate classes in theatre critical studies. Her work about religious performance in 19th-20th century America has been published in Theatre Journal, The State of the Art, and Theatre Topics. Her book, Performing America in Anti-Mormon Melodrama, was published by Routledge in 2009 and won the Best First Book Award from the Mormon History Association. We are pleased to have her contributions here at the JI.

My interest in religious practice in Mormon history is neither wholly religious nor very historical.  I?m grateful to colleagues in the field who focus on theological practices from baptism ordinances to temple ceremonies to relief society birth rituals.  The topics I study as performance scholar are rarely fundamental to salvation.  Contextualizing Mormon ritual is generally a nineteenth century study, requiring detailed looks at the archives to tease out foundational practices and first-person accounts of origins.  My interest in the material practice of Mormonism is more contemporary.  As Ryan T. points out in his introduction to Religious ?Practice? Month at the JI, ?Time. . .has brought a new consciousness of the embodied, external, purposive behavior of religious actors.?  I take his description literally and examine Mormon actors of the twenty-first century, on theatrical stages, in LDS Pageants.

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JI March Madness Bracket 2014

It’s that time of the year, when the snow begins to melt (hopefully) and a hoops fan’s heart turns to March Madness. This year, we at Juvenile Instructor are hosting a March Madness bracket challenge for our loyal followers. Join us!

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The Genius Ritual

Okay, my last post talked about the concept of the “genius”: guardian beings like angels.  Here I talk about a possible ritual that young Joseph Smith might have performed on the night of the Moroni visitation.  Michael Quinn argued that Smith may have performed some type of ritual on the night of the visitation.  After summarizing Quinn’s arguments, I present the following:

An additional piece of context for the Moroni visit was the statement from the neighbor that Smith was ?born with a genius.?  Again, this was a Platonic notion that remained prevalent in grimoires.

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The Genius

The following is a short excerpt from my dissertation.  It’s part of a bigger section on the Smith family religiosity.  It therefore refers to issues discussed earlier, which may make this a little confusing.  This section doesn’t address a ritual, but it’s important context for a post I’ll put up soon that does have to do with ritual.  Extra points for those who can guess what that post will be about.

The Chosen Son.  Associates of the Smiths in Vermont and New York said the Smiths spoke of Joseph Jr. as the chosen son.  Smith had a number of traits that would have set him apart in folk culture.  The Green Mountain Boys said that the Smiths said that Joseph Jr. was ?born with a veil,? which meant born with the caul: being born with the caul set children apart in European folk culture, often meaning that the child was a seer.^[1]  The Green Mountain Boys seemed to link that claim to Joseph Sr.?s desire to find a stone for his son by which he would ?see all over the world,? suggesting the caul and seeing with a stone were linked; Smith himself would claim the ability to ?see? with a stone.

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My two current favorite books on ritual/liturgy/practice

A couple of years ago, I was reading David Hall?s edited volume Lived Religion, and ruminated a bit on my reading along with a request for suggested volumes. For practice month here at the JI (deep in my heart it is really ritual/liturgy month), I wanted to similarly open up with a discussion of two books that have influenced my current study of Mormon liturgy, and then ask for your advice.

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Mormon Studies Weekly Roundup 3/1-3/8

Hello and welcome to this week’s Mormon Studies Weekly Roundup! As always, if we missed something, please let us know in the comments.

If you’re looking for a great volume to teach material religion, Samira K. Mehta has a review of A History of Religion in 5 ½ Objects.

Dieter F. Uchtdorf spoke at the BYU Church History and Doctrine/LDS Church History Department’s Symposium. He told the audience, among other things, “Truth and transparency complement each other,” he said. “We always need to remember that transparency and openness keep us clear of the negative side effects of secrecy or the cliché of faith-promoting rumors.” Jana Reiss also has an excellent writeup on what she calls “this breath of fresh air.” If you attended the symposium, let us know your thoughts on the speakers!

Neylan McBaine is calling for women’s experiences working with ward and stake leadership for a future book project. If you have any experiences, positive or negative, please be sure to let Neylan know. Her project is sure to be useful in the academic sphere for those interested in Mormon religious practice.

Along those same lines, the New York Times published another article on Mormon women. The article addresses, among other things, holding children during baby blessings and the confession/church court process (and its lack of women in the process for other women). The LDS Church’s Newsroom blog re-blogged the first piece in its “Getting It Right Series.” It’ll be interesting to see if this one is as well.

The Society for the History of Women in the Americas is is hosting a writing workshop for postgraduate students on Wednesday 11th December at UCL, Institute of the Americas. Those interested should e-mail the organizers; their address is found in the link.

“The Bible in American Life” is a national study by the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture. The purpose of the study is to understand better how Americans use the Bible in their personal daily lives and how other influences, including religious communities and the Internet, shape individuals’ use of scripture. Apparently most Americans agree with J. Reuben Clark, whether they care or not, and use the KJV more than any other translation of the Bible.

If you’re in the UK April 3-5, you can hear our own Christopher present on itinerant Methodist preachers in British North America and the Carribean. For those interested in Mormons, be sure to check out Benjamin Lindquist?s presentation on “Mission, Migration, and Memory: Childhood and the Latter-Day Saints’ Trek to Salt Lake City.”

Finally, Matthew Garrett, who has shared his thoughts on the convergence of Mormon and Native American History, was interviewed this week about the Indian Placement Program in the 1970s. It was not discontinued until 2000 when the last student graduated.

Let us know what we missed. We would also love to hear about your experience at the symposium!

Building a Bibliography: The History of Mormon Practice

Today’s the day here at JI when, in keeping with our theme this month, we compile a listing of scholarship on the history of Mormon practice. This is intended to be a collaboration, so we hope you’ll jump in and contribute. The list below ought to get us going, but many studies have surely been overlooked, and the categories are arbitrary, so additions and reconfigurations are more than welcome. What works and categories are we missing? What glaring lacunae do you see in the field? What piques your interest? What trends can you identify? How much praise can we heap upon the superstars here? Share your thoughts and insights as we build a comprehensive bibliography.

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