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.
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.
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.
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.
Signature Books was founded in 1981 to promote the study of the Mormon community at its intersection with American history. Over the years Signature has created a unique literary repertoire–publishing biographies, documentary histories, personal essays, poetry, regional history, fiction, humor, etc. Signature is committed to expanding the scope of Mormon studies, broadly defined, and to enhancing opportunities for creative and scholarly expression. Signature champions works that are honest, thoughtful, and grounded in the best critical thinking; that emphasize human experience and intellect; that advocate civil discourse; that engage and challenge; and that encourage new ways of approaching the past, present, and future.
Few figures in the development of Mormon studies during the late-twentieth century are more significant than D. Michael Quinn. Educated at Brigham Young University, the University of Utah, and Yale University, Quinn was among scholars who revisited and revised the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He worked as a researcher under Church Historian Leonard Arrington and produced a series of significant works emblematic of the New Mormon History. At times Quinn’s work sparked backlash, and his identity as queer, Chicano, and independent put him at odds with his surrounding culture. His controversial scholarship and activities led, first, to his forced resignation as a full professor at BYU and then, later, to his excommunication from the church.
Quinn’s legacy has only grown with time. His many articles and books continue to inform and influence scholarship today. The Mormon studies community mourned when he passed on April 21, 2021, at the age of seventy-seven.
We will hold a one-day conference examining the life and legacy of D. Michael Quinn on March 25, 2022, at the University of Utah. Sessions will explore both his experiences as a historical figure as well as his impact on historiography.
The John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics seeks applications from junior scholars and recent Ph.D. graduates for up to four postdoctoral fellowships in residence at Washington University in St. Louis. The appointment is for one year, renewable for a second year. Eligible applicants must complete the Ph.D. by July 1, 2022, and are expected to have completed it no earlier than January 1, 2017. In exceptional cases a qualified applicant who completed the Ph.D. prior to 2017 or who hold a J.D. without a Ph.D. may be considered. Research associates will spend most of their time pursuing research and writing for their own projects. They will also serve the intellectual life of the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics through participation in its biweekly interdisciplinary seminar and events hosted by the Center. Their teaching responsibilities will include: 1) developing one course per year to complement and contribute to the Center’s curricular offerings, and 2) possibly assisting in one additional course each year (depending on the particular teaching needs of the Center). Washington University in St. Louis is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer and especially encourages members of underrepresented groups to apply.
The Williams P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist University and the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art solicit papers that examine religion in the North American West. Selected participants will take part in a two-part symposium to workshop their papers leading to an edited volume. The symposium and resulting volume will examine the religious, spiritual, and secular histories of the Trans-Mississippi West, including western Canada, northern Mexico, and the trans-Pacific West such as Hawaii, the Philippines and American Samoa. The symposium will focus on the West(s) created by the contact of settler-colonists, migrants, and indigenous peoples from the 16th to 21st centuries. Paper topics should not merely be set in the North American West but should engage significantly with the region as a constitutive part of religious histories and experiences.
On Pioneer Day this year, I sat in Florida, some 2,000 miles from my beloved Salt Lake City, feeling homesick. Nobody in Sarasota would even know what it meant if I wished them a happy 24th, let alone want to listen to me wax poetic about the cheese fries and dipping sauce at the Training Table (RIP) or hear out my opinions about what should or should not go in funeral potatoes. (Green onions, not regular onions. I will die on this hill.) Fortunately, I had an excellent companion for this bout of homesickness: This is the Plate: Utah Food Traditions, edited by Carol A. Edison, Eric A. Eliason, and Lynne S. McNeill, a sprawling volume that is particularly interested in parsing the fine-grained details of Utah’s cuisine. Readers can ponder the foodways of indigenous people, Greek immigrants, Mormon settlers, Salt Lake City’s Nikkei Senior Center luncheons, and many other groups.
Steve Fleming on BH Roberts on Plato: “Interesting, Jack. But just to reiterate, I think JS saw the SUPPRESSION of Platonic ideas as creating the loss of truth and not the addition.…”
Jack on BH Roberts on Plato: “Thanks for your insights--you've really got me thinking.
I can't get away from the notion that the formation of the Great and Abominable church was an…”
Steve Fleming on BH Roberts on Plato: “In the intro to DC 76 in JS's 1838 history, JS said, "From sundry revelations which had been received, it was apparent that many important…”
Jack on BH Roberts on Plato: “"I’ve argued that God’s corporality isn’t that clear in the NT, so it seems to me that asserting that claims of God’s immateriality happened AFTER…”
Steve Fleming on Study and Faith, 5:: “The burden of proof is on the claim of there BEING Nephites. From a scholarly point of view, the burden of proof is on the…”
Eric on Study and Faith, 5:: “But that's not what I was saying about the nature of evidence of an unknown civilization. I am talking about linguistics, not ruins. …”
Recent Comments
Steve Fleming on BH Roberts on Plato: “Interesting, Jack. But just to reiterate, I think JS saw the SUPPRESSION of Platonic ideas as creating the loss of truth and not the addition.…”
Jack on BH Roberts on Plato: “Thanks for your insights--you've really got me thinking. I can't get away from the notion that the formation of the Great and Abominable church was an…”
Steve Fleming on BH Roberts on Plato: “In the intro to DC 76 in JS's 1838 history, JS said, "From sundry revelations which had been received, it was apparent that many important…”
Jack on BH Roberts on Plato: “"I’ve argued that God’s corporality isn’t that clear in the NT, so it seems to me that asserting that claims of God’s immateriality happened AFTER…”
Steve Fleming on Study and Faith, 5:: “The burden of proof is on the claim of there BEING Nephites. From a scholarly point of view, the burden of proof is on the…”
Eric on Study and Faith, 5:: “But that's not what I was saying about the nature of evidence of an unknown civilization. I am talking about linguistics, not ruins. …”