Happy New Year’s Eve! Before we ring in the new year, we thought we’d look back at the year that was at JI. Below you will find the 10 most-viewed posts from the past twelve months.

1. Andrea R-M, Mormon Studies in the Classroom: Mormon Women, Patriarchy and Equality. Our resident Rexburg professor gives us a glimpse into how she teaches women’s issues in her courses, and by doing so schools us all.
2. Amanda HK, Kris, and Andrea R-M, A History of Women’s Excommunication. In the wake of the Kate Kelly excommunication news, these three fantastic historians give an overview of the historical context that brought greater meaning to the moment.
3. Saskia T, On Chewing Gum and Conversion Stories. Saskia has done much to teach us the importance of words and narratives, and this post, where she analyzes the Uchdorf’s conversion story, is no different.
4. Steve Fleming, When did you First Hear about Joseph Smith’s Polygamy (And Other Difficult Issues)? After the release of the LDS Church’s polygamy essays, this post questioned where everyone first received the information and how that context influenced how one digests such news.
5. Ben P, The Mormon History Comps List (2014 Version). People love debating over Mormon history book lists, and this post is very much in that vein. In this list, I tried to lay out the twenty-five books one should read if they want to be up-to-date with the field.
6. Saskia T, New Guidelines for Missionaries. In light of new missionary dress standards, Saskia points out how the difference in male and female regulations highlights how the church views elder and sister missionaries differently.
7. Ben P, 2014 in Retrospect: An Overview of Noteworthy Books and Articles in Mormon History. People love year-in-review posts, even when they’re muddled with my reflections.
8. J Stuart, More Questions from the Mailbag (On Plural Marriage, Joseph Smith’s Youngest Wife). J Stuart had the idea to ask for, and then answer, questions regarding plural marriage in the wake of the new polygamy essays. We have had several answers thus far, but this one definitely had the weirdest comment thread JI has witnessed in a while.
9. One Memorable(?) Event from LDS General Conference History. For a few weeks, it seemed the Church couldn’t decide whether the General Women’s Session was officially part of General Conference or not. Kris traces the back-and-forth, and the discussion led to what this episode tells us about gender issues.
10. Rachael, A Review of Sheri Dew’s “Women and the Priesthood”. In the midst of all the gender debates this past year, Sheri Dew released a book on the topic. Rachael reviewed it here, and questioned what it tells us about the general dialogue.
11. (Bonus!) Christopher, Repudating the Pearl of Great Price? More on Reactions to the 1978 Revelation. A continuation of an earlier post, Christopher looks at the reactions to OD2 that we sometimes don’t include in our narratives of “the long promised day.”

And don’t stop with those eleven posts! There was lots of fantastic work at JI over the past year, as the blog remains the pre-eminent digital location to discuss the academic world of Mormon history. For instance, you can look over our many book reviews and journal overviews at this link.

We thank you for your continued readership, and hope we continue to deserve your dedication. If you have any feedback or suggestions for the blog’s future, please leave it in the comments.

Happy New Year’s!