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“Max Perry Mueller”

Highlights from the Journal of Mormon History 44, no. 4

By September 27, 2018


The latest issue of the Journal of Mormon History arrived in my mailbox this week and, I am pleased to say, is a very strong issue. Below is a brief summary of the articles and a list of book reviews. You can submit your article manuscript to the Journal of Mormon History HERE.

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Roundtable: Nelson on *Race and the Making of the Mormon People*

By March 26, 2018


This is the first of three posts on Max Perry Mueller’s Race and the Making of the Mormon People. Today’s post comes from Jessica Nelson, who recently completed an MS in history at Utah State University. She is interested in race and Mormonism in the twentieth century and loves riding her stationary bike. 

Max Perry Mueller?s book Race and the Making of the Mormon People actively and deliberately engages with the Book of Mormon. This is significant, and I hope that other scholars will follow suit and take the words of the Book of Mormon?along with its 19th century context and what it represents to Mormonism?seriously in their work. Mueller rightly demonstrates that the Book of Mormon?s stories of racial lineages are critically important to understanding racial constructs in early Mormonism.

Readers familiar with the Book of Mormon will be able to recognize that Mueller carefully read Mormonism?s foundational text. After finishing Mueller?s conclusion, however, I am left wondering how useful textual analysis and literary criticisms of the Book of Mormon are to fully understand race in nineteenth-century Mormonism. How central are Mormon scriptures to Mormon conceptions of racial otherness and whiteness? Can the Nephites as ?white? people within the Book of Mormon be problematized any more than the simplistic way that Mueller references them? Did nineteenth-century white Mormons even think of the Nephites as ?white? like they were? The Book of Mormon is inherently problematic as primary source material, but evaluating Mueller?s claims begs further examination of scripture and the characters in it.

 

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A blessing, scripture, and an interview.

By February 28, 2018


In my current project, I am thinking about how a text becomes scripture–how people develop a relationship with a text. On this last day of Black History Month, I’m thinking about three items that reflect relationships to scripture that affect the life of Jane Manning James: a blessing, scripture, and an interview.

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Summer Reading Lists

By May 9, 2017


Last year, we shared what we planned/hoped to read over the summer. Here are our lists for this summer–be sure to add your own reading lists in the comments!

J Stuart:

This summer I’ll be studying for my comprehensive exams full time. Rather than list the 300 books still on my list, here are three books from each of my three major fields.

Hannah:

  • The Basics: Despite recently starting my PhD in American history, I feel like I still have a lot left to learn of just the basics of the field. In order to do some catching up, I have a few basic American history textbooks, including Give Me Liberty! An American History by Eric Foner. Much of my year thus far has been about thinking about entangled histories and the nuance in historical movements. While I mostly support the movement to complicate ideas about the past, I also have been craving learning some of the foundations. One of my goals this semester is to play with new formats to process and think about historical information and therefore, I want to create a large scale timeline, using some of the basic info that I find in Foner’s book, that will enable me to better visualize American history.
  • Theory: A recent research project has got me thinking a lot about governmentality and surveillance as a means of knowing and controlling populations. Additionally, I have continually seen Foucault’s ideas (as well as Marx) in my readings throughout this semester as authors reference ideas that are indebted to Foucault without actually explaining them. I want to read The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception in order understand the ways that Foucault talks about the epistemic change in medicine. Secondly, I want to read The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction where Foucault discusses investigates the genealogy of how sexuality has been constructed over time. In both these books, I am looking forward to learning more about the ways Foucault grounds the body in discussions about power, sexuality, and governance.
  • Journals: Another goal I have for the summer is to read more Mormon journals. In the fall, I started reading A widow’s tale: the 1884-1896 diary of Helen Mar Kimball Whitney. Helen’s journal especially has frequent vivid and intimate entries that made me deeply embedded in her life and I look forward to reading more. Additionally, I recently got the Guide to Mormon Diaries and Autobiographies by Davis Bitton from the library and look forward to using his descriptions of Mormon diaries as a jumping off place for where to look next in my readings.

Ben P:

Christopher:

Saskia:

  • One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America by Kevin M. Kruse. American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon by Stephen Prothero. As I move deeper into American religious life, both personally and professionally, my reading list amasses more titles that try to elucidate what it is, exactly, that makes American Christianity well, so American.
  • The Mormon Tabernacle Choir by Michael Hicks. I have listened to countless hours of MoTab music on Pandora in the process of writing my dissertation. As the inauguration controversy in January showed, the choir is still a powerful symbol of Mormonism in America, so it’s high time I read this book.
  • The First Thanksgiving: What the Real Story Tells Us About Loving God and Learning from History by Robert Tracy McKenzie. It popped up recently on the Religion in American History blog, and it reminded me I own it, but haven’t yet read it. I’m interested in McKenzie’s historiographical and confessional approach, and figured you can never start amassing talking points for Thanksgiving dinner early enough, right?

 


JMH Special Issue on Race: A Brief Introduction

By July 2, 2015


When I composed the introduction to the special edition of the Journal of Mormon History (July 2015), I described the study of race and Mormonism as a ?nice subject, historically obscure even within the Mormon studies world.? But boy have I been proven wrong, or at least behind the times!

Anyone attending last month?s Mormon History Association annual meeting in Provo, where many of the panels dealt with race (broadly conceived) and the restored church?not to mention the powerful Smith-Pettit plenary by Margaret Jacobs on the adoption of Native American Children by Mormon families as well as the Best Book Award going to Russell Stevenson?s documentary history on people of African descent and Mormonism?would recognize that race has become a major preoccupation for the corner of Mormon studies that MHA represents.

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#MHA50 Award Recipients

By June 5, 2015


Please join us in congratulating this year’s winners of the 2015 Mormon History Association Awards (JI bloggers are bolded):

Leonard J. Arrington Award: Néstor Esteban Curbelo Armando

Best Book Award: Russell W. Stevenson, For the Cause of Righteousness: A Global History of Blacks and Mormonism, 1830-2013 (Salt Lake City,:Greg Kofford Books, 2014).

Best First Book Award: David J. Howlett, Kirtland Temple: The Biography of a Shared Mormon Sacred Space (Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield: University of of Illinois Press, 2014).

Best Biography: Julie Debra Neuffer, Helen Andelin and the Fascinating Womanhood Movement (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press,  2014).

Best Documentary Editing/Bibliography: Terryl L.Givens and Reid L. Neilson, eds. The Columbia Sourcebook of Mormons in the United States (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014).

Best Family/Community History: Donna Smart Toland, Finding Rachel & Myra Among Henrie Pioneers (self-published).

Best Personal History/Memoir: Craig Harline, Way Below the Angels (Grand Rapids, MIL Wm. B. Erdmans Press, 2014).

Best International Book: Marjorie Newton, Mormon and Maori (Salt Lake City,:Greg Kofford Books, 2014).

Best Article: Andrea G. Radke-Moss, “I hid [the Prophet] in a corn patch’: Mormon Women as Healers, Concealers, and Protectors in the 1838 Mormon-Missouri War,” Mormon Historical Studies 15, no. 1 (2014): 25-40.

Article Awards of Excellence (2): David Walker, “Transporting Mormonism: Railroads and Religious Sensation in the American West,” in Sally Promey, ed. Sensational Religion: Sensory Cultures in Material Practice. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014), 581-603.

Christopher James Blythe,  “Would to God, Brethren, I could Tell you Who I Am!’: Nineteenth-Century Mormonisms and the Apotheosis of Joseph Smith,” Nova Religio: The Journal Of Alternative and Emergent Religions 18 no. 2 (2014): 5-27.

Best International Article (2): Casey Paul Griffiths, Scott Esplin, Barbara Morgan, and E. Vance Randall “Colegios Chilenos de los Santos de los Ultimos Dias’: The History of Latter-day Saint Schools in Chile,”  Journal of Mormon History 40, no. 1 (2014):  97-134.

Dylan Beatty, “Mamona and the Mau: Latter-day Saints Amidst Resistance in Colonial Samoa,” Pacific Studies 37, no. 1 (2014): 48-74.

Best Article on Mormon Women’s History: Rachel Cope, “Composing Radical Lives: Women as Autonomous Religious Seekers and Nineteenth-Century Memoirs” in Nineteenth-Century American Women Write Religion, ed. Mary McCartin Wearn (Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2014), 45-58.

Best Dissertation Award: Max Perry Mueller, “Black, White, and Red:  Race and the Making of the Mormon People, 1830-1880,”  Harvard University.

Best Thesis Award: Joseph Stuart, “Holy Races: Race in the Formation of Mormonism and the Nation of Islam,” University of Virginia.

Best Graduate Paper:  Charlotte Hansen Terry, University of Utah, “Rhetoric vs. Reality: Mormon Women’s Diaries and Domesticity in the Early Twentieth Century.”

Congratulations to all the winners!


Mormon History Association awards recipients

By June 6, 2014


As announced at this evening?s Awards Banquet in San Antonio, Texas:

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2013 in Retrospect: An Overview of Noteworthy Books and Articles in Mormon History

By December 2, 2013


The last few years have been good for Mormon history.

The last few years have been good for Mormon history.

This is the fifth annual installment of my “Retrospect” series here at JI, in which I offer an overview of scholarship in the field from the last twelve months. (For previous installments, see, in reverse chronological order, here, here, here, and here.) I always enjoy these posts, as it not only allows me to keep track of everything that has been done, but also see broader trends in the field. And to better accomplish that latter goal, I include articles from the last twelve months as well, since that gives a broader understanding of the current historiographical interests and movements.

As always, while I aim to be broad and liberal in scope, I am still human with my own interests and biases. Thus, it is very likely I overlooked some important books and articles, so it is your job to fill in my gaps in the comments. And just like last year, at the end of the post I will offer my own picks for MHA’s awards, and encourage you to do the same.

Also, remember that you can find the best and most in-depth tracing of Mormon studies at the recently launched Mormon Studies Review!

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JMH: Special Issue on Mormonism and Race

By February 28, 2013


Journal of Mormon History

Call for Articles

Special Issue on Mormonism and Race

To be published in the summer issue of 2014

Finished papers due July 31, 2013

Special Editors:

Max Perry Mueller: mpmuell@fas.harvard.edu

Prof. Gina Colvin: gina.colvin@canterbury.ac.nz

Goals of the Journal?s special issue on Mormonism and race:

This special issue of the Journal of Mormon History aims to broaden and deepen the conversation on Mormonism and race beyond the historical focus on the ban on black men from the Mormon priesthood, and its emphasis on the U.S. experience. In particular we aim to understand ?race? beyond the black-white (European-African) binary. We welcome articles ranging in historical focus from the Mormon movement?s founding to the present day. Articles exploring international encounters, race and gender, and race and politics, and race and class are of particular interest.

Requirements:

Papers should be original work. Wherever appropriate, concrete evaluation results should be included. Submissions will be judged on originality, technical strength, primary sources, significance, and interest to our readers. Papers should range from 6,000 to 8,000 words. Please submit manuscripts simultaneously to both of the Special Editors listed above. Include separately a brief CV or biography.


The Juvenile Instructor turns 5 today

By October 26, 2012


It’s hard to believe that it’s been five years since that fateful day at J-Dawgs when five lowly BYU students decided to start a blog devoted to the academic study of Mormon history. Yup, that’s right. The Juvenile Instructor turns 5 today. We’ve added new bloggers (there’s 25 of us now! 25!), regretfully said goodbye to a couple of others, and grown and developed and (hopefully) improved during that time. I’ll offer my own belief that the JI is bigger and better and stronger than it’s ever been. And a lot of that has to do with you, our readers. Among the most regular comments I hear from people about the JI is how much they appreciate and enjoy the quality of conversation that goes on in the comments section, and I tend to agree. For those that have been with us since the beginning, thanks for sticking around. And for those who only recently found the blog, thanks for stopping by. We hope you’ll visit often.

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