Bruce Jorgensen is looking for submissions for this year’s Mormon Letters session at RMMLA-a great opportunity to present at a conference, especially for anyone doing stuff in Mormon literature or film. I’ve posted Jorgensen’s CFP and submission details below: (more…)

We at the JI are honored to host the esteemable Janiece Johnson for the next couple of weeks.

In her own words, Janiece’s biography relevant to this blog can be measured out in “BYU, BYU, Vandy, the U,” corresponding roughly to “poli-sci, history, theology, history.”   She’s currently PhD’ing in the University of Utah’s history department and writing a dissertation that will resolve everybody’s questions about the Mountain Meadows Massacre in a satisfying and logical way.  If we are all particularly lucky, perhaps she will have something further to say about that.

Welcome, Janiece!

Please welcome out latest grad student acquisition, Edje, who after two weeks of guestblogging is now joining us permanently. See here for his bio. (more…)

Thank goodness for laptops and wireless internet. For this post I had to dress my young, whippersnapping self as a black stew-pot and climb onto a very high horse. Balancing a desktop would have been nigh impossible, especially with all the kettles watching. This pot is stewing a rant (with a soupçon of rave) on some basic number sense (more…)

  Tradition has it that Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, co-founder of the well-known Theosophical Society, had wanted to travel to Nauvoo to see the Mormons but was unable to do so due to their expulsion from the state of Illinois shortly before she arrived in the U.S. [1]. Though such a visit unfortunately never materialized (it could have been an encounter to rival Joseph Smith’s interview with the prophet Matthias in its historical delectability), tradition also has it that she did pass through Salt Lake City in the early 1850s, (more…)

No time for a real post dealing with the martyrdom today, but here’s ERS’s memorial of Joseph Smith’s death. (more…)

Introduction
Last year, Ronan posted a bit called “Making Adjustments” at By Common Consent (here, with useful comments all the way to the end) that hashed out some of the issues with and hermeneutical strategies for bringing together revealed and scholarly understandings. (See also: Joel’s post from Friday.) The Gold Plates’ putative chemical composition provides an example of revealed-subsequently canonized-language “adjusting.” [1] Joseph Smith-History 1:34, quotes Moroni, an angel, as saying “there was a book deposited, written upon gold plates, giving an account of the former inhabitants of this continent.” Does “gold” mean “100% pure, elemental gold,” a gold-based alloy, or a color? [2] How much could such plates plausibly weigh?

(more…)

(Continued from here) 

In 1890 there were only four documented “persons of Japanese ancestry” in the entire territory of Utah.[1] Contrasted with the Chinese, Utahns had no contact whatsoever with a significant Japanese population. Subsequently, the Japanese were easily romanticized, especially in light of the glowing reports from National newspapers about Japan’s westernization and generous trade agreements. After Admiral Perry’s opening of Japan in 1854, the United States quickly recognized that the Japanese were apparently an enlightened race to so willingly and expeditiously adopt principles of modernization into their nation. Soon, trade ambassadors from Tokyo were traveling to Washington, D.C. along the transcontinental railroad to further solidify political relations between both countries. Along the way, delegations stopped in Salt Lake City.[2] The Japanese politicians were dazzling to the Mormons. They wore fine western clothing, spoke English, and were obviously gentlemen. (more…)

Since we’ve been posting a bit on race topics, I thought this would be a good time to contribute selections from my Joseph Smith Seminar 2007 paper entitled “Another Other: Asian Race and LDS Theological Change 1880-1930.” Just as a note, I only chose to analyze perceptions of the Chinese and Japanese because those “races” had more sources to work from for the period I was interested in. However, I think a further inquiry into Korean, Southeast Asian, Mongolian, and South Asian perceptions would be helpful and fascinating. The sources are out there, the work just needs to be done.

(more…)

(Before commenting on this post I would ask that you read the entire post. The point of this essay is to promote civil discussion and dialogue. Extreme polemics and ad hominem attacks are not helpful for any discussion. Be careful how you use and define labels. The following comments are offered in the spirit of understanding-I hope that our readers will participate in the same spirit. Please think before you write.) (more…)

White, Protestant America’s nineteenth century frontier mythology—as most characteristically emblematized in the western—helped define the American character and justify the violent exploitation of the American West by Anglo-Americans. In the last three decades of the 1800s, many observers, Frederick Jackson Turner among them, worried that the frontier was closing and with it the source of America’s greatness, as they supposed. Since Mormons were part of the West, a change in how people imagined the West influenced how they imagined Mormons. (more…)

The language of martyrdom and persecution provided Latter-day Saints the linguistic tools by which they could reverse the power relations as they had been defined by the Missourians and Illinoisans. Mormon opponents were successful in expelling the Latter-day Saints from both Missouri and Illinois, prosecuting and imprisoning Mormon leaders for crimes, all while avoiding legal sanctions for non-Mormon vigilantes. Mormon authors were well aware of these inequalities, leading them to imagine a time when God would vindicate their people. (more…)

According to the about section, The Juvenile Instructor seeks to “situate the study of Mormonism within wider frameworks, including American religious history, western history, gender history, and, on occasion, the history of the Republic of South Africa.” A Google site search for “South Africa” reveals that RSA posts in JI’s archives are slimmer than a protea’s petal or a springbok’s ankle. Thus, for my first post, I’ll make a small contribution to JI’s South African historiography.

(more…)

Please join the Juvenile Instructor in welcoming Edje as the newest guest blogger to the JI. Edje is a regular commenter here at JI (and other sites around the ‘nacle), and is, like the rest of us here (except for ol’ man Taysom), a grad student in history. Here is what he has to say about himself: (more…)

There is no date, though a bit of research reveals that this hymnal was published in 1909. (more…)

In the Tanner Lecture at MHA this year, Philip Jenkins noted the substantial growth of Mormonism in Africa and asked the question: Why hasn’t it done better? (more…)

Many Mormon scholars have a funny quirk. They refer, in formal scholarly work, to the founder of their faith by his first name. (more…)

Mormon historians’ various analyses of Nauvoo usually include a line or two about what became of Nauvoo after the Latter-day Saints left town.  In The Story of the Latter-day Saints, James Allen and Glen Leonard summarized post-Mormon Nauvoo by explaining that after the Saints headed west, “the temple was shamefully desecrated by mobs; finally, in October 1848, an incendiary set fire to that magnificent sacred structure. (more…)

The American Academy of Religion has just released its program for the 2008 annual meeting, to be held in Chicago in November. The Mormon Studies Consultation will be holding two sessions this year. (more…)

Wow. I’m speechless. This is a real presentation from BYU’s religion department that is still being advertised on BYU TV’s website (ht: Justin). Click on the “Priesthood Restrictions Through The Ages.”  They actually think that there’s evidence that Joseph Smith instituted the ban, that the pre-existence mumbo jumbo still works [see comments #1 and #108], and seem to be operating out of the 1950s historiographically. Now, I’m not sure when this recording was made, but I find it a disgrace that BYU TV is still showing this. They apparently missed Elder Holland’s rebuttal of the “folklore.”

John Turner is assistant professor of history at the University of South Alabama and contributing editor at the Religion and American History blog.

(more…)

This meeting at the Tabernacle commemorated the 30th anniversary of the revelation on priesthood, which extended the blessings thereof to all worthy males.

Elder Earl C. Tingey presided at this commemoration. Elder Sheldon Child was seated with him, also Elder LeGrand Curtis, an area authority.

Elder Tingey spoke briefly by way of introduction. He said, “We look forward to the day when all men & women of the earth are seen only as God’s children.”

After a hymn, Pres. Fred. A. Parker III, Stake President of the Atlanta Stake spoke. His was a fairly traditional talk about the priesthood. He emphasized the Oath and Covenant of the Priesthood and following the prophet, stating generally that many lives had been changed since the June 8, 1978 revelation. He also made reference to Doctrine and Covenants 121:41-46 and the righteous use of priesthood. (more…)

John Turner is assistant professor of history at the University of South Alabama and contributing editor at the Religion and American History blog.

I recently blogged at Religion in American History about my attempts to learn about contemporary Mormonism during a recent research trip to Utah. (more…)

Much is said on the Bloggernacle about the cognitive dissonance that many feel as they try to reconcile the knowledge they acquire through scholarly treatments of Mormonism with what they hear in their church meetings every Sunday. In this post I would like to explore another form of cognitive dissonance that I find quite prevalent in my own quest to become a professional historian. I hope that you will permit me a moment of personal reflection about something that I think is relevant for those who produce and consume academic history. (more…)

James C. Brewster was the leader of a Mormon schismatic group that had its origins in the Kirtland period. After a series of visions, Brewster claimed to receive an abridgment of the first through eighth books of Esdras, an ancient Israelite prophet. Brewster published his abridgment of the Books of Esdras in June of 1842. [1]

In the December 1, 1842 issue of the Times and Seasons (page 32), in response to his book, a notice was issued calling Brewster’s Book of Esdras “a perfect humbug” and called Brewster’s credibility into question for his profession of the use of a seer stone to find hidden money around Kirtland, calling it “ridiculous and pernicious”. The article also took to task Brewster’s father and “some of our weak brethren, who perhaps have had some confidence in the ridiculous stories that are propagated concerning Joseph Smith, about money digging, [who] have assisted him in his foolish plans”. The notice ended by quoting Doctrine and Covenants 28: 2-3, 11-13 [1981 Edition] which section refers to the Hiram Page incident. (more…)

Just in case you didnt get enough on Emerson back in February (see here and here), this is an encore performance. (more…)

Element: The Journal of the Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology is publishing a special issue dedicated to student articles. Submissions will be accepted by undergraduate or graduate students currently enrolled in a program of study related to philosophy, theology, or other areas of religious studies. Papers will be reviewed by selected members of the SMPT Executive Board and other outside reviewers as needed.

Authors of papers selected for publication will receive a $50.00 gift certificate for books at Amazon.com with a $100.00 award for the winning article as selected by the SMPT Executive Committee.

Submissions should be sent as attachments via email to brian.birch@uvsc.edu in Microsoft Word format. An abstract of no more than 150 words should accompany each submission along with full contact information, including name, institution, program of study, phone numbers, e-mail, and mailing addresses. All articles will be subject to blind review and editorial modification.

nformation about the Society and journal can be found at www.smpt.org. For further questions, contact Brian Birch at brian.birch@uvsc.edu.

Roberts frequently noted where he saw resonance between his readings in philosophy ands science and the Doctrine and Covenants or other Restoration scripture. (more…)