By February 20, 2012
David Golding is a PhD student in the History of Christianity at Claremont Graduate University, is a co-editor (with Loyd Ericson) of the Claremont Journal of Mormon Studies, and assisted in creating the new MHA website. He also wrote the leading book on the web programming framework, CakePHP. He has been kind enough to share a little bit about an exciting new primary source project.
See his previous posts here and here.
We all have become hybrids in this day and age, haven?t we? In another life?and it still manages to remain with me no matter what I might do to shake it off?I worked in software development and desktop publishing. I can?t help but return to systems theory and technology as I build my own research agenda as a historian. For years now, I?ve anticipated historians taking advantage of what software engineers work with every day: open source data and logic. And yet nothing quite like open source technology has taken root in the archival and historical professions. It?s time for us to consider the benefits of pushing our research into a collective and open system, a system already possible (and free of charge) thanks to advances in social media, software versioning, and cloud computing.
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By Ben PFebruary 20, 2012
This is a (very loose) continuation of the (very broad) series on reaching a broader audience. See also here and here.
“Bowman doesn’t shy away from the unsavory aspects of the Mormon faith, including a now-discredited belief in polygamy (as revealed in a revelation to Joseph Smith, the founder of the religion), as well as institutionalized racism. However, the ongoing controversies of the church and the stream of recent media describing Mormonism as a cult–from Jon Krakauer’s scathing non-fiction work Under the Banner of Heaven to HBO’s Big Love–is left entirely unaddressed in this work, which instead pays occasional attention to the inherently American aspects of the religion.” –Publisher’s Weekly
“Any discussion of Big Love, a complicated recent portrait of polygamy in a Mormon-like community, is left out. Nor is there a mention of Jon Krakauer?s forceful and very critical 2003 book, Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith.” -Dwight Garner, New York Times
Many people, correctly, have pointed out the obsession with Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven as one of the many oddities in these unfortunate reviews of Matt Bowman’s recent book. What, we wonder, made Krakauer’s caricatured telling of Mormonism’s “violent” past so crucial that to avoid it in a historical survey of the LDS Church is worthy of being charged with negligence? Few academics praised the 2003 book, it makes very few lists of “necessary” monographs on Mormon history, and almost anyone with more than a superficial understanding of Mormonism’s past recognize the sensationalistic aspects of its thesis. Put simply, it’s a shoddy work of history, and should have been destined to be another flash-in-the-pan sensationalist work that soon fell into insignificance. (The Mormon Murders, anyone?)
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By ChristopherFebruary 17, 2012
Those of you who have received the latest issue of the Mormon History Association’s newsletter—newly rebranded as
MHA News and available as a PDF
here—likely noticed two important announcements noting the Association’s new logo and new website. From the newsletter:
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By Steve FlemingFebruary 16, 2012
Dillinger, Johannes. Magical Treasure Hunting in Europe and North America: A History. Houndsmills, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
There’s no need to point out that treasure digging has been a major theme in the historiography of the early life of Joseph Smith for 40 years or more. So it was with great excitement and high hope that I read the first book-length treatment of the subject. This book exceeded my expectations. In fact, although it technically dedicates only 4 pages to Mormonism, I found the book to be one of the most ground-shifting books I’ve ever read on Joseph Smith. I hope readers will excuse my enthusiasm, but the first full treatment to the topic has yielded exciting results.
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By AmandaFebruary 16, 2012
Cross-posted at Scholaristas.
I never knew I had fat calves until I tried on a pair of skinny jeans. I tugged on the jeans ? trying to get them over the bulges of my legs. When I finally did, it was to no avail. Pants that were big enough to fit over my calves were way too big in the waist. I had never realized that I had fat calves before ? it had never been an issue because the skirts and jeans that I had worn had never fit them closely or required them to be a certain size. I soon discovered that the boots also in fashion were equally difficult to fit to my body. Since then, I have been slightly uncomfortable with my fat calves and chubby knees. Unfortunately, these areas of the body have proven to be especially unyielding to exercise.
In her book The Body Project, Joan Jacobs Brumberg argues that experiences like mine are not abnormal. Women?s understandings of their bodies are influenced by pop culture, trends in fashion, and the cosmetics industry. In the mid-twentieth century, fashion trends that required girls to bare their mid-riffs led girls to be more concerned about the firmness of their stomachs and bodies.[1] A corset can?t hold your stomach in when you were required to bare flesh. Brumberg?s project is to explore how the ideas that girls have had about their bodies have changed from the late nineteenth century to the present.
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By February 16, 2012
Our own Brett D. and other friends of the JI will be participating. See the full schedule:
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By February 13, 2012
Please join us in welcoming our latest guest blogger, Amanda Hendrix-Komoto, PhD student doing some fascinating research who blogs at Scholaristas. Here’s a short biographical intro:
Amanda Hendrix-Komoto is a PhD Candidate at the University of Michigan, where she studies the American West, Comparative Colonialism, and British History. She is also a graduate of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where she earned a Masters degree in education while teaching elementary school, and the College of Idaho. Her current project juxtaposes Mormon missionary work in Britain with that in the Pacific to understand the dynamics of race, gender, and class in these two respective fields of labor. She is also interested in the development of Mormon feminism in the nineteenth century and its connections to the Mormon missionary project. Finally, Amanda is a connoisseur of Mormon kitsch and collects Mormon missionary action figures, Book of Mormon board games, and Mormon children?s books.
Welcome, Amanda! We look forward to your contributions!
By ChristopherFebruary 13, 2012
For those of you, like myself, who have used and benefitted from the wonderful Mormon History Database—a regularly updated online bibliography of all articles, books, theses, and dissertations in the field—maintained by Mike Hunter at BYU’s Harold B. Lee Library, please consider taking 5 minutes to participate in the following survey:
https://byu.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_eDQUjvbRILWwkmg
Many thanks!
By ChristopherFebruary 6, 2012
From the Mormon History Association:
The Mormon History Association will give its yearly awards for the best books, articles, dissertation, thesis, and student papers published or writte on Mormon history during 2011 at its annual 2012 conference, which will be held in June in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
The submission deadline is February 15, 2012. Books should be submitted in hard copy in the number specifically requested by chairs. If there is a hardship because the list price of a book is $75 or more, we ask the publisher for one hard copy and an electronic version of the book. Electronic submissions must be sent in WordPerfect, Word, or as a .pdf document. Any member of the Mormon History Association may submit or nominate a publication for consideration. Send specific questions to the subcommittee chairs.
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By CarlFebruary 6, 2012
This post is basically an overview of the course itself. In general, there will be four units, each corresponding to a particular textbook that we will read.
But before we get into the units themselves, I will have my students read Mormonism: A Very Short Introduction, by Richard Bushman. Oxford puts out these ?very short introductions? on a variety of topics, and I thought having my students read this one would be a good way to start and get a general overall feel for Mormon history and theology before we really start to dig in.
Joseph Smith
The first major unit will cover the life of the Prophet Joseph Smith. You really cannot do Mormonism without focusing on him a lot. In many ways, that would be like attempting a class on Islam without talking about the Prophet Muhammed. It?s just a bad idea. We will be reading selections from Rough Stone Rolling, Richard Bushman?s marvelous biography of the prophet. Bushman is able to thread the needle between faith and scholarship, coming to no hard conclusions about the faith-content of Joseph?s experiences (even though Bushman himself is a believer) but doing a fabulous job of presenting Joseph the historical figure.
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