By Edje JeterFebruary 3, 2015
In the next two posts I?m going to look at turtles as symbols in a Mormon context. I resisted the titles ?Mormon Testudines? and ?Mormon Chelonians? as being bit obscure for a non-science blog. For our purposes today, ?turtles? will include ?terrapins? and ?tortoises,? acknowledging that some versions of English make distinctions among the three. It turns out that almost everything I found with Mormons and turtles in the same sentences involved comment on the shape of the Salt Lake Tabernacle.
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By ChristopherFebruary 2, 2015
The schedule for the Fifth Biennial Faith & Knowledge Conference was posted this morning at faithandknowledge.org. The event will be held on Friday, February 27 and Saturday, February 28, 2015 at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia. Registration is now open, as well.
For the first time ever, Friday night’s opening panel will be open to the public, and if you’re in the general area, you won’t want to miss this. Noted LDS scholars Terryl Givens, Professor of Literature and Religion, and the James A. Bostwick Professor of English at University of Richmond, and J.B. Haws, Assistant Professor of Church History and Doctrine at Brigham Young University and author of The Mormon Image in the American Mind: Fifty Years of Public Perception (OUP, 2013), will offer their respective thoughts in response to the prompt, “What’s Changing in Mormonism?” They will be followed by a response from Jennifer L. Geddes, Research Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia and Director of Publications at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture University of Virginia. Dr. Geddes is the author of several articles and essays, and the editor of two books: Evil after Postmodernism: Histories, Narratives, Ethics (Routledge, 2001); and, with John K. Roth and Julius Simon, The Double Binds of Ethics after the Holocaust (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
Attendance at Saturday’s proceedings is limited to currently-enrolled LDS graduate students and early career scholars. It features presentations from some of the very best and brightest young Mormon scholars in panels ranging in subject from “LDS Experiences in and Approaches to the Academy” to “LDS Perspectives on Faith, Personality, and Work,” and from “Gender, Sexuality, and Race in Mormon History, Theology, and Experience” to new and innovative “Approaches to Mormon Scripture” to “Faith Crises and Faith Transitions.”
If you’re an LDS graduate student or early career scholar interested in the intersections between religious faith and scholarship, please consider attending.
By January 30, 2015
[Looks like a great program, including a smattering of JIers–always a good sign for a successful conference.]
Claremont Mormon Studies Conference
Community, Authority, and Identity
Claremont Graduate University
March 6-7, 2015
Albrecht Auditorium
925 N. Dartmouth Ave.
Claremont, CA 91711
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By David G.January 29, 2015
Posting Info:
Posting Dates: 01/29/2015 – 02/27/2015
Job Family: Library, Research & Preservation
Department: Church History Department
Purposes
The Church History Department seeks a full-time Writer/Editor who will be responsible for the research, writing, and editing of products associated with historic sites significant to the history of the Church.
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By J StuartJanuary 29, 2015
A few weeks ago, I began to scan and catalog notes from previous research projects. One of my notes from a project on the development of the notion of the post-mortal spirit world caught my eye. It is a telegram sent from Heber J. Grant to Edna Lambson Smith, the wife of President Joseph F. Smith, in the wake of her son, Hyrum Mack Smith’s, death. I thought this note was a lovely expression of affection and empathy from Grant and don’t really have anything to do with it, research-wise. I figured I would post it here and see if it inspired somebody else. At any rate, it’s been exactly 97 years since the telegram was sent, and presumably, received.
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By Mees TielensJanuary 28, 2015
Harline, Craig. Way Below the Angels: The Pretty Clearly Troubled But Not Even Close to Tragic Confessions of a Real Life Mormon Missionary. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2014.
Craig Harline, professor of European History at BYU, wrote a missionary memoir about his time spent serving in Belgium. As its title suggests, this is not a typical memoir of perseverance and triumph. No, instead Way Below the Angels: The Pretty Clearly Troubled but Not Even Close to Tragic Confessions of a Real Live Mormon Missionary chronicles his time as Elder Harline in a real, self-deprecating, and occasionally raw manner.
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By Ben PJanuary 27, 2015
[We are happy to pass along this CFP from our good friends who run the Mormon Studies Group at AAR. In my personal experience, these sessions usually include some of the most exciting work currently being done in the field.]
The Mormon Studies Group seeks proposals for full sessions or individual papers that consider any aspect of Mormon experience using the methods of critical theory, philosophy, theology, history, sociology, or psychology. This includes the use of Mormonism as a case study for informing larger questions in any of these disciplines and, thus, only indirectly related to the Mormon experience. For 2015 we are particularly interested in proposals addressing international Mormonism and which engage questions of globalization, imperialism, and decolonization.
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By J StuartJanuary 26, 2015
Welcome back to our continuing series, where we answer questions about plural marriage. As always, there are actual questions from actual readers.
OTHER POSTS IN THIS SERIES
To what extent was Emma aware of the various sealings? Was Joseph actively deceiving Emma about the sealings? What do we know of the impact of polygamy on the Smith’s marriage? Do we know if divorce was ever seriously being considered?
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By J StuartJanuary 23, 2015
Our friends in the Religion Department (Church History and Doctrine) at BYU are hiring adjunct faculty to teach a Doctrine and Covenants course this SUMMER term.
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By Edje JeterJanuary 21, 2015
In many anti-Mormon cartoons from the 1880s (and a few before and after), the Salt Lake Tabernacle functioned as a graphic shorthand to communicate Mormon-ness. That is, from its completion in 1867 until sometime after the completion of the Salt Lake Temple in 1893, the presence of the Salt Lake Tabernacle was one of the ways you knew you were in a (usually anti-) Mormon cartoon. In retrospect, the point seems rather obvious, but it surprised me a bit when I noticed so I wrote it up.
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