Juvenile Instructor - A Mormon History Blog

Write for Journal of Mormon History

By Ben PFebruary 3, 2016

Here’s a message from JI’s good friend and recently-appointed editor of Journal of Mormon History, Jessie Embry:

Greetings JI readers. I enjoy seeing the interesting discussions that you have on the blog. I hope that you will consider expanding some of them and submitting them as articles to the Journal of Mormon History. There is not a back log anymore, and I am eagerly looking for seminar papers or chapters of your dissertations to enlighten the Mormon History Association members and other Journal of Mormon History readers. Guidelines for submitting articles are available on the MHA webpage. If you feel that you have something that is not quite ready for publication, I would enjoy working with you on it. I look forward to hearing from you.

Jessie L. Embry

Editor, Journal of Mormon History

Understanding “Interest” in Joseph Smith’s Original Tithing Revelation

By GuestFebruary 2, 2016

We’re pleased to present this guest post from Sam Brunson, Associate Professor of Law at Loyola University Chicago, regular blogger at By Common Consent, and tax and business law geek extraordinaire.

Both in and out of the church, people are fascinated by tithing. On the one hand, according to Pres. Kimball, ?it?s not difficult to be perfect in tithe paying, for if one pays one-tenth of his income annually, he is perfect in that respect.? On the other hand, while one-tenth is precise and easy to calculate, the church never defines what ?income? means, leading to internal debates over, among other things whether we should pay on our gross or net income and whether we tithe on barter or gifts we receive.

Digital Mormonists, Volume 1: American Panorama

By ChristopherFebruary 1, 2016

This is the first entry in yet another occasional, sure-to-be-irregular, but hopefully still important series here at the Juvenile Instructor. Since the blog’s inception in 2007, digital history projects have come a long way, and in the last couple of years, a number of really important digital databases, atlases, and other assorted projects have appeared. In “Digital Mormonists,” I plan to highlight those of potential interest and relevance to scholars of Mormonism and its history.

A month or so ago, someone I follow on twitter linked to a new digital history project called American Panorama: An Atlas of United States History. A product of the Digital Scholarship Lab at the University of Richmond (whose other projects include the phenomenal Visualizing Emancipation and the very useful Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States), American Panorama presents a variety of interactive maps with historical data.

MHA: Calls for Awards

By J StuartJanuary 25, 2016

A friendly letter and reminder from the Mormon History Association. Be sure to nominate those who are deserving! Please remember female authors and scholars from underrepresented groups if/when one nominates work. It does not make much time to nominate someone else’s work!]

MHA Logo

Dear members and friends of the Mormon History Association:

It?s that time of year when we?re actively seeking nominations for our annual publication awards. Because submission information is currently unavailable on the MHA website, we felt that this email reminder would be timely and helpful.

Remember that the submission deadline is February 1, 2016 for all works that have a 2015 publication/copyright date.
For book awards
We remind authors and presses that books should be submitted directly by the publisher. Five copies of each book to be considered should be sent to the MHA office (note the NEW ADDRESS):

Mormon History Association
175 South 1850 East
Heber City, UT 84032

Tona Hangen chairs the book awards committee.

Giselle, or the making of idols

By Mees TielensJanuary 21, 2016

One of my dissertation chapters deals with gender and the family as protectors of religious order, discussing how Mormon discourse contributes to the erasure of women?s voices on a local and institutional level. During my research, I read Fresh Courage Take: New Directions by Mormon Women, edited by Jamie Zvirzdin. It?s a book filled with essays by seasoned writers, and not-so-seasoned writers, traditionalists and progressives alike, and one of the essays that really struck me was ?Giselle,? written by the editor herself.

Mormon Studies in Unexpected Places: Volume III: The Refiner’s Fire Edition

By ChristopherJanuary 20, 2016

This is the third installment in an ongoing but terribly irregular series dedicated to the appearance of Mormon Studies in popular media, including musical lyrics, popular television shows, movies, and so forth. Previous installments can be read here and here.

A friend recently tipped me off to a series of books by Sarah Andrews, in which Wyoming-born geologist Emily ‘Em’ Hansen uses her geological skills to help solve murders in various locales throughout the western United States.[1] The third installment in the series, Bone Hunter, takes place in Salt Lake City and Snowbird, Utah, where the annual meeting of the Society for Vertebrate Paleontology is being held.[2] Here’s Publisher’s Weekly’s summary of the plot:

BYU and Martin Luther King, Jr.

By ChristopherJanuary 18, 2016

Last weekend, while visiting Atlanta for the annual meetings of the American Historical Association, fellow JIer Ben P and I visited the Martin Luther King, Jr., National Historical Site. That we approached the historic Ebeneezer Baptist Church just a few minutes before 11 am on a Sunday morning I can attribute to nothing other than perfect synchronicity.[1] It was my first time visiting the site, and I was moved by what I witnessed. I was unable to attend sacrament meeting that day, but the pilgrimage to the King site was worship enough. I resolved to post something here at JI in commemoration of King, but could think of nothing that would do justice to either King or my visit last weekend.

So today, in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr., I want to highlight two posts from the Juvenile Instructor’s early years. Both were penned by former JI blogger, Ardis Smith, whose excellent original research on student responses to the Civil Rights Movement at BYU in the 1950s and 1960s deserves a much wider audience.[2] As part of her research, Ardis surveyed student responses to the April 1968 murder of the famed civil rights leader who we remember and whose legacy we celebrate today, in the student newspaper, the Daily Universe. Ardis examined the DU‘s coverage in the immediate aftermath of the murder, and the DU‘s discussion on the one year anniversary of King’s death. Much of the response from students is what you might expect (subtly and not-so-subtly racist condemnations of King’s civil disobedience, his Marxist views, and his rumored ties to Communist leaders, justified with citations to LDS teachings and scriptures), but Ardis also discovered and recovered the voices of those students who dared to speak up in support of King and the movement he led.

Announcing The Marlin K. Jensen Scholar and Artist in Residence Program at the University of Utah

By J StuartJanuary 14, 2016

Marlin K. Jensen

The Tanner Humanities Center is proud to announce its most recent Mormon Studies initiative. We have begun to raise funds to create a fellowship in the name of Marlin K. Jensen. OurMarlin K. Jensen Scholar and Artist inResidence Program will host prominent scholars with expertise in Mormon Studies or renowned artists who explore the relationship between faith and art in their work.

From the Archives: White Child Adopted by the Paiute Indians

By AmandaJanuary 13, 2016

A few weeks ago, I found an entry in the Church History Library about an Indian woman who had adopted a white child. There was almost no information about the document in the library catalog. I immediately asked for it to be digitized but questions about the location of the original document meant that it was impossible for it to put online. I eventually asked Joseph Stuart, a Ph.D. student at the University of Utah to look at it for me.

Here’s the summary he provided:

CFP: “Mormonism and Global Media” Symposium

By Tona HJanuary 12, 2016

Doesn’t Hawaii in November sound perfect? Thought so. Check out this CFP, then; it looks broad enough to encompass historical approaches as well.

2016 MORMON MEDIA STUDIES SYMPOSIUM

CALL FOR PAPERS, PANELS, AND PRESENTATIONS

Theme: Mormonism and Global Media
Conference site: BYU Hawai?i campus in Lā?ie, Hawai?i
Conference date: November 3 & 4, 2016
Proposal submissions due July 1, 2016

Sponsored by Department of International Cultural Studies and the College of Language, Culture and Arts, BYU Hawai?i

Mormonism grows in a world with a variety of religion-society and religion-media relationships. Its historical, cultural, social, and political insertions into host countries may differ significantly from place to place. Thus Mormonism?s treatment by the media, its attempts to publicize itself through the media, and its members’ use of media technologies in religiously relevant ways?to name a few types of relationships with the media?may differ significantly from U.S. Mormon-media patterns. A conference on Mormonism and media surveys the current situation, raises new questions, and encourages new conversations about a globally growing religion and the part media play in particular cultures.

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