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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Call for Applicants: Paper Prizes in Communal Studies

Passed along from JI friend Matt Grow:

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN INDIANA CENTER FOR COMMUNAL STUDIES CENTER PRIZE

The Center for Communal Studies at the University of Southern Indiana announces its annual prize competition for the best undergraduate and graduate student paper on historic or contemporary communal groups, intentional communities and utopias.

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The Success of “Succession Crisis”?

Post-1844 Mormonism has been on my mind lately since beginning a documentary history project with fellow-blogger Ben Park on the “Succession Crisis.” The documentary record is rich with history that should be more widely available to scholars interested in the various interpretations of Mormonism following Joseph Smith’s death.

I’ve long paused at the term “Succession Crisis,” hesitating at the term’s capacity to depict the history it attempts to clarify. There is no doubt Mormons faced a tumultuous period following the 1844 death of Joseph Smith and his brother in Carthage, Illinois–some of that difficulty stemming from theological/doctrinal confusion. But to what extent did the church and its members undergo a “crisis” in deciding upon a path of “succession?” In trying to be conscious of the language and terminology we use, I’ve put some of my thoughts to digital paper, attempting to outline some points I think the term “Succession Crisis” reveals not just about the past, but historians’ attempt at explaining that past.

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The JI Welcomes Robin Jensen

We at the Juvenile Instructor proudly welcome Robin Jensen—one of the foremost experts of Joseph Smith’s revelatory texts, rising star in the Mormon studies community, and all-around good guy—as a full-time contributor. This is how Robin introduces himself:

Robin Jensen is project archivist for The Joseph Smith Papers and helped edit the first two volumes in the Revelations and Translations series (published 2009 and 2011, respectively). In 2005 he earned an MA degree in American history from Brigham Young University, and in 2009 he earned a second MA in library and information science with an archival concentration from the University of Wisconsin?Milwaukee. He is now pursuing a PhD in history at the University of Utah. His first MA thesis explored the initial Strangite proselytizing effort and his second MA thesis explored the sacred record-keeping practices of early Mormonism. He believes that there is nothing better than the smell of old documents in the morning.

While obvious, it should bear mentioning that any posts/comments by Robin are not endorsed by the Joseph Smith Papers or the Church History Library.

I am especially lucky to count Rob as a collaborator and one of my good friends. As everyone who is familiar with his work already knows, we are all in for a treat with his blog contributions.

2011 in Retrospect: A Look at Important Books and Articles in Mormon History

(I’ve closely followed Mormon history for only six years, but the previous twelve months were, by far, the strongest year in Mormon historical studies that I’ve seen yet. As always, JI is the place to be for looking at past and present scholarship in Mormon history. Besides the following recap of the 2011 year, Jared T’s perennially exhaustive “Recently Released and Forthcoming” list will appear later this week. Also make sure to check out Stapley’s Christmas Book Guide here.)

Continuing a tradition from the last two years, this post will give a quick run down of what I thought were important articles and books in Mormon history from the past twelve months. I like this format because it not only allows discussion of different media of publication, but it also encourages us to contemplate broader themes that are currently “hot” in Mormon historiography.

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Tona Hangen joins the JI full time

We’re thrilled to announce that after an excellent stint as a guest blogger, Tona Hangen has agreed to join the JI as our newest permablogger.

Please join us in welcoming her!

Book Review: Mason, Patrick Q. The Mormon Menace: Violence and Anti-Mormonism in the Postbellum South. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

In The Mormon Menace, Patrick Mason adeptly traces the contours of anti-Mormonism in the late nineteenth-century South and explains how proselytizing, polygamy, and extra-legal violence shaped the South’s response to Mormonism. Mason attends to the ways in which southern honor, defined by a communal estimation of the individual and often deployed to protect or avenge the virtuous female, provided justification for illicit actions against Mormon missionaries. While granting that anti-Mormon violence paled in comparison to racial and political attacks against African Americans, Mason contends that “Mormonism was unique in the way it inspired southerners to set aside general norms of civility and religious tolerance” (13).

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Graduate Studies, Mormonism, and the Bloggernacle: A Survey

From Patrick Mason:

At the January 2012 meeting of the American Society for Church History, I’ll be on a panel called “Teaching Mormonism in a Digital Age.” In my comments I’ll be considering the impact of the “bloggernacle” on Mormon studies, specifically in regard to the current generation of graduate students. I have designed the following questionnaire to get a better handle on why people read Mormon blogs and what they get out of them. The questionnaire is for any graduate student, full or part time, LDS or non-LDS, in any academic field. The informed consent form on the first page will explain more, or you can contact me at patrick.mason@cgu.edu with any questions. Thanks for participating.

The link to survey is found here.

Thoughts on the introduction to the new JSP Volume: Journals Vol. 2 (1841-43)

Though they haven’t held a “bloggernacle event” or “virtual launch” yet, the Joseph Smith Papers just released the most recent addition to their foundational series. Journals, Volume 2 (1841-1843) covers the first half of Smith’s Nauvoo journals, and includes many great gems that will help future researchers of this important period in Mormon history. While there is much to cover in the actual journals—I’ll leave that to J Stapley, who I hope will do another excellent review of the overall text like he’s done for the other volumes—I just want to comment on a single section of the introduction; in fact, only about seven pages of the introduction.

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“Mormon Women and Modernity” at AAR San Francisco

It’s a gorgeous sunny day in San Francisco – where’s that fabled fog?? I’m sporting the already-ubiquitous free red tote bag and lanyard as I stroll between the hotels in and around Union Square downtown. This my first AAR/SBL and yes — it is a BIG conference. I’m being remarkably restrained in the book exhibit although there’s lots to drool over (I was tweeting some of the more notable titles, feel free to follow my conference tweets @tonahangen, and the conference hashtag is #sblaar).

Saturday morning I headed over to the session sponsored by the Mormon Studies Consultation. Colleen McDannell was presiding (really, that’s the way it’s printed in the AAR program) over a session on “Mormon Women and Modernity.”

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