JOB AD: LDS Church History Department, Historic Sites Registrar

POSTING INFO

Posting Dates: 12/15/2021 – 01/09/2022

Job Family: Library, Research & Preservation

Department: Church History Department

Continue Reading

JOB AD: Assistant Professor of Church History & Doctrine at BYU

FA-Faculty

Job Title:  Church History & Doctrine Professorial CFS Track

Job Classification: CFS-Professorial 

Required Degree: PhD

Posting close date: January 10, 2022

Start date of this position:  July 1, 2022

Religious Education and the Department of Church History & Doctrine at BYU

Continue Reading

2022 Forthcoming Titles in Mormon History

2022 MHA will be in Logan. The only way to make sure that you’ll have room in your suitcases for everything you buy at exhibits there is to get your shopping done in a way that allows you to only pack a single bag for MHA travels. Plan ahead! 

Continue Reading

2021’s Notable Books, Book Chapters and Articles in Mormon History

Rather than a preamble about what I liked, I want to hear from you: what did you like best? What did I miss?

Global Mormonism

Marie Vinnarasi Chintaram, “Mauritians and Latter-day Saints: Multicultural Oral Histories of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints within the ‘Rainbow Nation,'” Religions 12 no. 8 (2021).

Christopher Cannon Jones, “A verry poor place for our doctrine’: Religion and Race in the 1853 Mormon Mission to Jamaica,” Religion and American Culture 31, no. 2 (2021): 262-295.

Ryan A. Davis, “The Spirituality of Sport: Los Mormones in Argentina, 1938–1943,” Journal of Mormon History 47, no. 4 (2021): 22–51.

“Globalizing Mormonism.” Edited by Matthew Bowman, Caroline Kline, and Amy Hoyt Religions 12 no. 8 (2021).

Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp, “Global Mormonism in Political Context,” Mormon Studies Review 9 (2021): 23-35.

Continue Reading

Call for Applicants: National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute: “Mormonism and Mexico”

Applications are now open for the NEH Summer Institute Mormonism and Mexico: A Case Study in Religion and Borderlands

Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, CA invites scholars and educators to examine the history of Mormonism and Mexico as a case study to explore the impact of borders and migration on religious change in the modern world.

Dates: June 27-28, 2022 (virtual), July 1-8, 2022 (residential), July 18-22, 2022 (virtual)
Apply: https://mormonstudies.cgu.edu/events/neh-summer-institutes-program/
Application Deadline: March 1, 2022
Stipend: $2,850

This institute will encourage its participants to think about the intertwined history of Mexico and the various churches that make up the Mormon tradition as a means to explore deeper questions about borders and religion.We will explore how political and cultural borders between the United States and Mexico have transformed Mormonism, and in turn how Mormonism has provided residents of both nations a way to transcend those borders through its reinvention.

In so doing, the institute will be of interest to scholars in a number of disciplines: historians, students of religious studies and Latinx students, scholars of the American West, cultural pluralism, and migration. The institute focuses on a religious tradition that has been absent from most borderlands and Latinx religious studies, but whose presence in Mexico and the American West is notable. Just so, it will encourage scholars of religion in the United States and of Mormonism in particular to consider issues of globalization and borderlands.

The institute, intended for 25 college and university teachers, will be held June 27-28, July 1-8, and July 18-22, 2022. Approximately half of the institute will be held at Claremont Graduate University and half remotely via Zoom. While in person, attendees will take advantage of the resources of Claremont’s Honnold Library, including the Gomez Collection on Mexican Mormon History, visit a Mormon Spanish-language service and the Cheech Marin Center For Chicano Art, Culture and History, and visit with a number of visiting scholars and speakers.

Each participant will be expected to develop a project, either research, pedagogical, or having to do with public history.

The institute will be directed by Matthew Bowman, Daniel Ramirez, and Caroline Kline.

CFP: Responses to Krakauer’s *Under the Banner of Heaven*

In 2022, the FX Networks will release a miniseries adaptation of John Krakauer’s bestselling book Under the Banner of Heaven: The Story of Violent Faith. First published in 2003, Krakauer compares the beginnings and trajectories of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Robert Crossfield’s School of the Prophets, a fundamentalist Mormon group. Ron and Dan Lafferty, members of the latter group, committed a double murder in their faith’s name. 

To better contextualize the book and the documentary in terms of Mormon history, we invite thoughtful responses to Under the Banner of Heaven to be published shortly before the documentary appears in 2022. Final pieces will be 1,000-2,000 words.  Proposals should be 100-200 words and should include a short CV. 
The deadline for proposals is December 20, 2021. Send proposals to the program co-chairs at jstuartteaching@gmail.com and cristinamrosetti@gmail.com. Acknowledgment of receipt will be sent ASAP. Notification of acceptance/rejection will be made by January 10, 2022.

JWHA Conference Proceedings now Online!

The 2021 John Whitmer Historical Association Virtual Conference can now be viewed on the association’s YouTube Account. The conference schedule can be viewed here.

This year’s conference included the panel discussion “On the Scriptural Periphery: Perspectives on Joseph Smith’s Egyptian Project” (Session 101), an Author Meets Critics session on Mark Staker’s Joseph and Lucy Smith’s Tunbridge Farm: An Archaeology and Landscape Study (Session 201), along with eight other presentations and Jill Brim’s Presidential Address on the Joseph Smith Jr.’s Red Brick Store.

JWHA hopes to have their annual conference in St. George, Utah in 2024.

Faculty position in Latter-day Saint/Mormon Studies at The Graduate Theological Union (GTU)

Located in Berkeley, California, the Graduate Theological Union (GTU) is the largest and most
diverse partnership of seminaries and graduate schools in the United States, pursuin
interreligious collaboration in teaching, research, ministry, and service. Since its founding in
1962, the GTU has produced thousands of alumni who teach at eminent universities and
seminaries, lead and work in a broad variety of arenas – cultural, economic, inter-religious, nonprofit
and political – to achieve the greatest good.

PRIMARY POSITION PURPOSE AND EXPECTATIONS: In concert with the Bay Area Latter-day
Saint/Mormon Studies Council, GTU invites applications for a two-year term as Assistant
Professor of Latter-day Saint/Mormon Studies. This appointment will begin July 1, 2022, and
end on June 30, 2024, with the possibility of renewal. We seek an exceptional teacher-scholar
with interests that include, but are not restricted to, Latter-day Saint/Mormon Studies,
including the background, origins and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
and the American Restoration movement out of which it emerged, Latter-day Saint scriptural
texts, Latter-day Saint/Mormon culture, and the global church.

Candidates should be conversant with relevant methodologies and theories, demonstrate
strong facility with biblical and restoration scriptures, and be able to position Latter-day
Saint/Mormon Studies within the Judeo-Christian tradition and American Religious history.
The successful candidate will work under the supervision of the Academic Dean and in concert
with the GTU Director of Latter-day Saint/Mormon Studies and the Bay Area Mormon Studies
Council. Duties include teaching two classes or their equivalent per semester, supporting the
general GTU academic program, working with other GTU centers and affiliates, cooperating
with other Mormon Studies Centers, and supporting the objectives and activities of the Bay
Area Mormon Studies Council. It is expected that candidates will have a devotional grounding
in the Latter-day Saint tradition.

GTU is committed to a diversified faculty. Persons from groups underrepresented in the
American academy are especially encouraged to apply.

The application deadline is January 7, 2022. Applicants should send application materials
electronically to the office of the GTU dean, in care of Sabrina Kennedy, skennedy@gtu.edu.
Materials should include a letter of application, a curriculum vitae, and three letters of
recommendation. For further questions on the position, please contact Interim Dean and VP for
Academic Affairs, Elizabeth Peña, epena@gtu.edu.

The Graduate Theological Union is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

CALL FOR APPLICANTS: TEACHING THE BEAR RIVER MASSACRE

The Rocky Mountain American Religion Seminar invites applications to participate in a historical teaching seminar, “Teaching Hard History: The Bear River Massacre.” The seminar will be held in person on January 15, 2022, from 9 AM to 4 PM, at the University of Utah. The seminar will provide all materials necessary to participate. Applications are due on December 7, 2021.

On January 29, 1863, the United States Army killed between 250-400 Northwestern Shoshone men, women, and children in what is today Preston, Idaho. The event has been labeled a “battle,” suggesting that both sides were equally aggressive in preparing for violence. Indeed, until February 2021, the memorial established by settlers to commemorate the Army’s violence called it the “Battle of Bear River” rather than the “Bear River Massacre.” In the decades following the Massacre, the Shoshone homesteaded, joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They have also kept the memory of “Boa Ogoi,” the Shoshone name for the Massacre, alive through oral and community histories.

The workshop will gather middle and high school teachers and graduate students to model how to teach settler/indigenous encounters in Utah, focusing on the Bear River Massacre. Students will learn the historical contexts of the Massacre, its historical afterlives, and how religion has shaped the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone since 1863. 

Joseph Stuart, a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Utah, will lead the morning’s meetings. He will outline the historical backdrops of the Bear River Massacre from multiple perspectives but centering on the lives of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone. He will also model a primary source activity for educators to use in the classroom.

In the afternoon, Darren Parry (Northwestern Shoshone) will share his family’s and peoples’ history in the decades following the Bear River Massacre. The afternoon will conclude with a primary source activity on historical memory adaptable to classroom settings. 

Before attending the seminar, attendees will be expected to read a provided copy of Parry’s book, The Bear River Massacre: A Shoshone History. 

To apply to participate, please send an email with the following information to jstuartteaching@gmail.com:

• Your name, phone number, and email address
• The name of the school where you teach (or the name of your academic institution if you are a student)
• A short CV
• 2-4 sentences on how attending the workshop will help you as an educator

Applications are due on December 7, 2021. Travel stipends are available for those driving more than 20 miles to attend. Lunch will be provided.

Call for Proposals for 2022 August 4-6 Workshop: Indigenous Perspectives on the Meanings of Lamanite

Workshop Dates: August 4-6, 2022
Location: University of Utah, Salt Lake City
Submission deadline: December 15, 2021

Inaugural Workshop
We write to announce a series of workshops titled, “Indigenous Perspectives on the Meanings of Lamanite,” and invite proposals for the inaugural workshop, which will be held at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah, August 4-6, 2022. Proposals are due by December 15, 2021.

Continue Reading