I was unable to attend this conference, but Trevor Holyoak did attend and has been kind enough to share some notes from the sessions he attended.  He notes at the end a website where past years booklets have been posted.  These booklets are well worth a look as they are loaded with great information and are very well designed.  Hopefully the program directors will publish this year’s booklet soon.  When it is, we’ll link to it on our sidebar.  Thanks Trevor!

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I’ve probably been one of the more positive and hopeful through this undying one-upmanship of Joseph Smith photo-finding that we’ve experienced in the last year.  With this latest edition to the fold of false Josephs, I just may be losing hope, and Ardis may just be proving prophetic yet again.

Check out this crank on Ebay.

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Glenn Beck, noted right-wing political pundit and Mormon convert, has recently been dubbed “Fox News’s Mad, Apocalyptic, Tearful Rising Star” by Brian Stelter and Bill Carter of the NY Times (ht: Paul Harvey). Casting him as a conservative “revivalist in a troubled land,” the writers note that Beck’s rhetoric is often more akin to a preacher than a reporter. (more…)

Below is the program for what promises to be an exciting conference on public perceptions of Mormonism. (more…)

I suspect the FPR folks will accuse me of poaching a post from them, but this has popped up twice now in my email account, and I think it’s interesting. It comes from an interview with biblical scholar Bart Ehrman, who grew up as a biblical literalist, went to bible school, and after years of studying the differences in the variant manuscripts of the New Testament, embraced agnosticism. In the interview, Ehrman mentions Mormons: (more…)

Periodically, historians conduct polls among themselves to determine the state of the field. I recently asked a couple dozen youngish historians what were, in their opinions, the top five books in Mormon history/studies today.  By “youngish” I mean under 40 and by “historian” I mean someone with academic training in history or a related discipline (I also included a couple ‘nacle participants who do not have academic training in history but are probably better read in Mormon history than most historians). (more…)

The following comes from a meeting of a “Special Council” held in Salt Lake on 21 March 1858. It is evidence, among other things, of Brigham Young’s contrarian streak. I’m sure it raised eyebrows 150 years ago, although probably not as many as it would raise today: (more…)

So, I am more than a little embarrassed that almost all of Women’s History month has passed and the JI has not published even one post on women and Mormonism. I was hoping to put together a more analytical post on how gender shaped some of the early Mormon narratives and poems written after the expulsion from Missouri, but that’s a project that will have to wait for now. But here is an Eliza R. Snow poem that describes the Haun’s Mill massacre. How does Snow use gender to shape the memory of the massacre? (more…)

Reading Nephi Reading Isaiah

Wednesday 15 April 2009

BYU HBLL Auditorium (1st floor)

9 Jenny Webb “Slumbering Voices: Death and Textuality in 2 Nephi” (more…)

“The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were.” –John Keats

[This is not so much a scholarly post as it is a personal averment of one of my cherished aspects of Mormon thought. It may be too literature-heavy for many of JI’s readers, but that’s where my background is, and also a framework which I believe helps our understanding of the intellectual context of early Mormon thought.] (more…)

On 25 May 1954, the Daily Universe published its first article about the passing of Brown v. Board of Education, a monumental decision ordering the desegregation of the nation’s schools, preventing Southerners from depending upon previous ideas of “separate but equal” that justified segregation. [1] Although the United States governmental radio station “The Voice of America” broadcast news of the ruling to Eastern Europe in less than an hour, the Daily Universe took about a week to report news of the Supreme Court decision. [2] In an article entitled “Banners Hide Acceptance of New Edict,” student reporter Arthur Hardy reported that while the media portrayed Southern refusal of the ruling, the majority of the men and women who lived in the South were actually for desegregation: (more…)

Let me begin with two disclaimers:

1) I do not want to rehash the debates regarding the (in)appropriateness or offensive nature of HBO’s recent portrayal of portions of the endowment ceremony on Big Love. Please take any comments regarding such matters elsewhere.

2) Others who participate on this blog know much more than I do about Latter-day Saint narratives of persecution. If my analysis seems oversimplified and unsophisticated, that’s probably because it is. Hopefully others with more understanding than I will offer their thoughts. (more…)

On July 17, 2008 Curt Bench discussed his work on the Parallel Book of Mormon, now sold out.  Our thanks to Brent  Brizzi for painstakingly transcribing the proceedings and making them available to the Juvenile Instructor. (more…)

I am thrilled for the opportunity to share some of my research with an audience that actually may be as interested in it as I am! It has been too long since I last had someone’s eyes widen when I told them I am studying the Mormons during the Civil War. And as I have been following JI as a “ghost reader” for some time now, I feel it is only appropriate that I finally thank the contributors for their insightful posts. (more…)

I’m pleased to introduce JI readers to an old friend of mine from BYU, Brant E., who will be guesting with us for a couple of weeks. Here’s Brant’s bio:

I only recently discovered a deep-interest in Mormon history and have been frantically trying to learn as much as I can. I thank the contributors at the JI for keeping me current with some of the current thoughts in Mormon Studies. Currently, I am in the final semester of my MA in American Studies at Penn State. I received a BA also in American Studies from BYU in ’06. My thesis explores the motivation of Mormon soldiers who fought in the Civil War.

Let’s welcome Brant.

Currently, a couple of seasoned Mormon scholars are working on a book collection of Mormon documents for Columbia University Press. This got me thinking: what would you say are “essential” documents in the LDS past? (more…)

Yes, believe it or not, I have re-emerged and am actually posting something. (more…)

I recently put one of my profs on the spot. He was bragging to the class about how he’s such great friends with the early American historian Alan Taylor, but when I asked if he was friends with Taylor on Facebook, my prof turned red, lowered his head, and confessed that Taylor had rejected his friend request (ok, not really, my prof said he didn’t have a facebook account . . . yet). Anyway, check the JI out on Facebook and become our fan.

http://apps.new.facebook.com/blognetworks/blog/the_juvenile_instructor_a_mormon_history_blog/

Last year, to much fanfare, Eborn Books released S. Michael Tracy’s Millions Shall Know Brother Joseph Again: The Joseph Smith Photograph which argues that a daguerreotype (known as the Scannel Daguerreotype) owned by the Community of Christ is an authentic daguerreotype of Joseph Smith.  Here is a gratuitous me reference that came out the day of the book’s release and here is a story from the Mormon Times the day after that better shows the image. (more…)

I recently completed reading Curtis J. Evans’s excellent new book, The Burden of Black Religion. In his book, Evans examines the various ways that African American religion and religiosity has been thought of and characterized from the early 19th century through the mid-20th century. (more…)

In my previous post on Howe’s What Hath God Wrought, I discussed Howe’s treatment of Mormon history from the 1820s through 1838. This post will complete my analysis of Howe by examining his discussion of Nauvoo, the exodus, and early Utah history. Let me just reiterate the point of my earlier post-Howe, unlike other historians who treat Mormonism in synthesis histories, has taken the time to get the details right and to engage contemporary Mormon scholarship. Just as he situated early Mormonism in Chapter 8 (“Pursuing the Millennium”) with other millenarian groups in the Early Republic, Howe in Chapter 18 (“Westward the Star of Empire”) includes Nauvoo and Utah within the wider contexts of Manifest Destiny, California, Oregon, and the Mexican-American War. (more…)

We’re pleased that Trevor Holyoak, who attended last week’s Symposium on Preserving Church History at BYU, has agreed to share his notes here with all of us.  Including notes from the presentation of our own Ben P.  Enjoy!

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Last year, as I was contemplating what research project I should engage in for my African-American history course, I came across a quote that intrigued me. In an article in BYU’s student newspaper the Daily Universe, 1960s student reporter Doug Wixom stated that “[t]he whole social protest movement passed right over the heads of BYU students that lived in Happy Valley” because students “were all so much in harmony with the basic values of the church that there was nothing to protest.” [1] This quote made me wonder–what was the actual reaction on BYU campus, if any, to the vast political and social events that were occurring in the United States during the time period? Were BYU students immune from social unrest or political uncertainty simply because they were shielded by their adherence to “the basic values of the church,” as Wixom postulates, or were the issues that were being discussed and protested on other college campuses throughout the nation similarly relevant and present at BYU?

What I have found in my research is that the latter view offers a more accurate description of the atmosphere at BYU during the 1950s and the 1960s. (more…)

Since Ryan T. did so well, we decided to try another advanced-beyond-their-age undergraduate. JI is pleased to announce our newest guestblogger, Ardis S; this is how Ardis introduces herself:

Hi Juvenile Instructor! My name is Ardis Smith, and I am an undergraduate student in History graduating this April. Social history is my favorite category of history. I recently completed and successfully defended an Honors thesis on eighteenth-century English kinship, something that I studied at both BYU and Cambridge. I also have researched for the past year the civil rights movement as portrayed in the BYU student newspaper The Daily Universe during the 1950s and 1960s. When I am not studying history, I enjoy music, photography, Model United Nations, and playing games with family and friends.

On a personal note, Ardis and I were fellow students at BYU’s (now ceased) Semester at Nauvoo Program, and I can attest to both her intellectual brilliance and pleasant nature.

Please join us in welcoming Ardis.

You’ll see on our sidebar that Religion Dispatches has done a follow-up article on the debate over the relationship between Mormon Mom blogs and the ‘nacle. While I believe that the reporter misread the debate that occurred over her initial article (I’m not sure many people were really arguing that Mommy Blogs should be excluded from the ‘nacle, but rather that the initial article had ignored and obscured the origins of the ‘nacle), I’m not all that eager to revisit that debate.  Rather, I’m interested in interrogating some of the other claims made in the two Religion Dispatches articles. (more…)

Grow, Matthew H. “Liberty to the Downtrodden”: Thomas L. Kane, Romantic Reformer. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009.

Matt Grow’s impressive new biography, “Liberty to the Downtrodden”: Thomas L. Kane, Romantic Reformer, captures the life of a little-known nineteenth-century reformer and, in the process, illuminates understudied and misunderstood aspects of nineteenth-century America. (more…)

I haven’t seen this CFP mentioned in the ‘Nacle (but then again, I haven’t been too up on the ‘Nacle lately, so if this is old news, please forgive the repeat info), so I thought I’d put in a plug for it. I was able to attend last year (see my notes: part 1, part 2), and it was a splendid little conference.  Though I truly was surprised at how small and intimate it was.  I’d love to see more of my fellow history nuts there this year. (more…)

The Mormon Times has a nice writeup summarizing Robin Jensen’s presentation at last Friday’s (more…)

For those of you out there who just can’t get enough, and I know there are a lot of you… (more…)