History News Roundup: Pew Survey, Elder Jensen, and others

This post is merely designed to be a catch-all for recent Mormon history-related news. Please feel free to add anything I missed in the comments.

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Come October We Will Bid Goodbye to Elder Jensen as LDS Church Historian

He will be given Emeritus status at the October General Conference and Elder Steven E. Snow will become the new Church Historian.

I don’t know a lot about Elder Snow, but I do know that Elder Jensen will be sorely missed. He has been a tremendous advocate for Church History and those who have had even the most passing personal contact with him know him to be a genuine gem of a person.

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Oz Behind the Curtain, Part 2

This is Part 2 in a series on course & syllabus design; Part 1 is here.

I last taught “Religions in America” in the fall of 2009 as a special topics course in history, which meant I didn’t have to jump through any approval hoops. Since that time, I’ve put the course through our university and General Education governance so it could be listed with a course number in the regular catalog. Now that I’m planning to teach it again in 2012-2013, it’s time to revisit the course from the inside out and update its learning outcomes and course expectations (and give it a revamped web presence). All of this can be done without altering its catalog description or governance approvals–which is an important point if you are inheriting an existing course and are looking to redesign it or reinvent its pedagogy.

My 2009 syllabus enumerated course objectives (old-style, professor-centered).

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Oz Behind the Curtain, Part 1

This will be a series of posts about the process of course creation, using my “Religions in America” course as a case study. I’m thinking about it this week because this is my university’s faculty “Winter Institute” and as part of it, there’s a two-day syllabus development workshop.

Course creation and syllabus design were not something that was covered in any great depth during my graduate education. I used syllabi I like as a model and tried to imitate the teachers I thought were exemplary, but as a general rule: pedagogy was a taboo topic. I don’t know if it seemed beneath us, or too self-evident to merit comment, or irrelevant to the research-and-dissertation-writing process… but you know, when I write those out that way, it seems so obvious that in real life it is NONE of those things, and that it is not only a worthwhile topic for us to talk about, but in fact a NECESSARY one.

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Panel Summary: “Teaching Mormonism in the Digital Age”

I spent this last weekend at the annual American Historical Association meeting and since the American Society of Church History is an affiliated organization and holds its meeting concurrently, I was able to sit in on the Mormon History Association panel entitled “Teaching Mormonism in the Digital Age.” What follows is a summary of the presentations given. Jan Shipps chaired the panel with Kathleen Flake, Patrick Mason, and Peter Thuesen participating. Jonathan Moore was supposed to participate, but ultimately was not able to make it. Dr. Flake tried to incorporate some aspects from his paper into her own. For me, the most exciting part of the panel involved the glimpses of Dr. Flake’s upcoming work which looks to be groundbreaking.  This rather long summary is from handwritten notes, so I make no claims to it being a perfect representation of the presenters’ ideas. Any mistakes are my own. I hope you enjoy.

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Mormon Books in the Wall Street Journal

(cross-posted at Religion in American History)

In Saturday’s Wall Street Journal, Samuel Brown, professor of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Utah, friend of the JI, and author of the recently-released In Heaven as It Is on Earth: Joseph Smith and the Early Mormon Conquest of Death (Oxford University Press, 2012), penned a short annotated list of “the five best” books on Mormonism, which included the following:

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Review: Gentry and Compton’s Fire and Sword

Fire and Sword: A History of the Latter-day Saints in Northern Missouri, 1836-1839, by Leland Homer Gentry and Todd M. Compton. Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2010.

Leland H. Gentry’s 1965 dissertation ?A History of the Latter-day Saints in Northern Missouri, 1836-1839? was part of a wave of new Mormon scholarship of the 1960s that sought to reinterpret Mormon history in more academic terms, avoiding the polarities of the ?traditional? anti-Mormon/pro-Mormon battles of the 19th and early 20th century. After reviewing the literature on Mormon Missouri during the late 1830s, Gentry noted in his introduction that

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Book Review: The Development of LDS Temple Worship, 1846-2000: A Documentary History

Anderson, Devery S. ed. The Development of LDS Temple Worship, 1846-2000: A Documentary History. Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2011.

Continuing Signature Book?s strong tradition in documentary histories, this is a fascinating collection of documents relating to LDS temple policy from the end of Nauvoo to the modern day. Building from the earlier two volumes in this series, Devery Anderson presents a plethora of important sources for historians interested in the development of LDS ritual. With a serviceable introduction that outlines the main themes of the book?s contents, and helpful biographical overviews provided in the footnotes, The Development of LDS Temple Worship is a welcome addition to the Mormon history field.

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Recently Published and Forthcoming Mormon History Books, 2011 Edition (Also: JI’s 1000th Post!)

UPDATES: See comments: 1, 13, 16, 17, 22, 24, 25, 28.

It’s time for the yearly round up of recently published and forthcoming Mormon history books. See last year’s list here. Be sure to also check out Ben’s recap of significant scholarship in 2011 and Stapley’s Christmas Gift Book Guide. Be sure to let me know what I missed in the comments. Rumors about book projects are always welcome! Finally, according to the WordPress stats, this is our 1000th published post. Not a bad milestone for any blog.

Arthur H. Clark & Oklahoma University Press

Gregory K. Armstrong, Matthew J. Grow, Dennis J. Siler. Parley P. Pratt and the Making of Mormonism. (AHC 2011)

James C. Work. Don?t Shoot the Gentile. (OUP 2011) ?A witty memoir of a non-Mormon teacher?s rookie years in Utah?

Book Review: Brant Gardner, The Gift and Power

Gardner, Brant A. The Gift and Power: Translating the Book of Mormon.  Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford, 2011.

Gardner seeks to understand the nature of Joseph Smith’s translation of the Book of Mormon by a thorough examination of the text coupled with descriptions of the translation process.  Gardner compares the Book of Mormon translation to regular translations and argues for three types: literal (an exact, word-for-word translation), functional (a translation that conveys meaning instead of exact wording) and conceptual.  Gardener argues that the Book of Mormon translation fits the functionalist type: it is a translation of the concepts into the idioms of Joseph Smith’s world.  Gardner goes further, arguing that research on cognition suggests how Smith translated: revelation was given at a pre-language level and then translated into English by Smith.  Gardner argues that such is a “natural” account of the translation and that his description still posits Smith as the translator.

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