Over at Religion in American History, Randall Stephens has posted a two part informal interview he conducted last week with Randall Balmer, noted historian of American religion and professor of American religious history at Barnard College, Columbia University. Part I and Part II are available on youtube. Among other things, Dr. Balmer talks candidly about his experience this semester teaching a course on Mormonism. He offers some interesting insight that I thought Juvenile Instructor readers might be interested in. (more…)

From the Salt Lake Mormon Studies Student Association website.

For our first Salt Lake Mormon Studies Student Association lecture, we’re pleased to have Kristine Haglund, editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, present a lecture entitled “Every Member An Historian: Why Mormon History is too Important to be Left to Professionals.”

When: December 3, 2009, 7 pm

Where: The Warnock Engineering Building (link to map), Room  1230 (The University of Utah).

Free parking  is available right across the street from the Engineering building as show in the map linked to above. Room 1230 is on the street level.

This event is free and open to the public. (more…)

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The Graduate Student Employment Organization (GEO) at the University of Illinois is going on strike tomorrow morning at 8:00 AM. I know this blog is primarily about the study of Mormon History, but inasmuch as almost all of its contributors are involved in Graduate Education I thought they might be interested in the following letter I wrote to my undergraduate students as an explanation for the strike. I think it tries to explain and interrogate the rapid corporatization of universities all over the country. I promise I will write something about Mormon history soon We would also appreciate any support from those of you in Illinois. (more…)

Liz mentioned that this will be the final activity under the auspices of the Women’s Research Institute (barring any welcome changes). Here are the details from the organizer’s site: (more…)

In response to the disbanding of BYU’s Women’s Research Institute, announced October 29, 2009, a group of students, faculty, and others are petitioning administrators to create a Women’s Research Council.

Please take a moment to sign the petition, (more…)

Nearly six months ago, we announced the creation of what he hoped would (and still plan to) become a regular feature here at the Juvenile Instructor. As we announced then, (more…)

In perusing the preliminary schedule for ASCH’s annual conference in San Diego, January 7-10, 2010, I came across a number of Mormon-themed presentations along with a host of other very interesting looking presentations: (more…)

Due to scheduling concerns, the opening social for the SLMSSA has been rescheduled to November 19, 6:30 pm on the third floor of the Carolyn Tanner Irish Humanities Building. See saltlakemormonstudies.wordpress.com for further info (building and parking) and please feel free to pass this notification along to interested students. (more…)

From Matt Grow:

CALL FOR PAPERS
for the Annual Conference of
The Communal Studies Association

Hosted by
Historic New Harmony & The Center for Communal Studies
University of Southern Indiana
New Harmony, Indiana
Conference Dates: September 30-October 2, 2010 (more…)

The comments on my last post got me thinking about a few things, particularly the fact that the subject of the post studied under the venerable historian of the English Reformation, Eamon Duffy. In the second edition to Duffy’s monumental The Stripping of the Altars, which present the English Reformation as an unwanted destruction of the English people’s traditoinal religion, Duffy makes the following disclosure: (more…)

Announcing the Salt Lake Mormon Studies Student Association.

Mission Statement:

The Salt Lake Mormon Studies Student Association was established to foster the academic study of Mormonism among graduate and undergraduate students in the Salt Lake City area. SLMSSA activities and events will help students network, keep abreast of developments in the academic study of Mormonism, facilitate interaction between students and established scholars of Mormonism, and generally promote academic development. (more…)

This will probably be it. I was gonna go through and edit my Quinn notes on Clark, but it’s just rehash of his bio, so if you’ve read that, you’ve got it. If you haven’t read that, you’d be better off reading it than my crappy notes.  Unfortunately I was not able to go today, so I don’t know how it turned out and I will not have notes. (more…)

I’ll have some thoughts and reflections at the end. Armand Mauss’ presentation was definitely the best as it was basically the only one that actually sought to analyze the data presented.  Wesley Johnson also makes an effort in that direction, but I think that Mauss’ criticisms will bear out a lot of the same issues I took with his presentation. I’ll have Mauss’ stuff in the next part. (more…)

From the Sunstone website: (more…)

Brian Birch Introductory Remarks

It’s hard to believe it’s been 10 years since we began having these annual Mormon Studies Conferences. Eugene England spearheaded Mormons studies here at UVU 11 years ago, we’re trying hared to perpetuate his legacy, and see his vision through. We’ve seen in the last decade dramatic changes in the academic study of Mormonism. As you know, a handful of institutions have recognized the academic study of Mormonism as something important in the academy and worthwhile to support. (more…)

In thumbing through Gwenfair Walters Adams’s Visions in Late Medieval England (Brill, 2007), I was surprised to see the following as the last line of her acknowledgements: “And ultimately, I am most grateful to God.”

Having never seen this before my question are 1) has anybody else ever seen such a thing, and 2) would you ever consider doing such a thing? Why or why not?

I’ve recently been researching the German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher, a late 18th- early 19th-century thinker who represented the transition between German enlightenment and Romantic thought. Schleiermacher, long recognized as an important sage in German culture, has only recently been given due attention in the English-speaking world. Thus, the literature on his theology is somewhat scant in the American academy (save for his demonization by 20th-century neo-conservatives like Karl Barth), especially when compared to someone like Joseph Smith who has long been scrutinized, praised, or overall engaged by scholars both within and without the Mormon tradition. Because of the relative newness of the topic, however, the narrative and frameworks in which to understand Schleiermacher’s thought is still being developed. Several important questions are just now beginning to be asked—questions which, surprisingly, still have relevance to Mormon history today. (more…)

Get out your magnifying glass…or wait until information shows up on the BYU Studies site.

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Just a reminder of a great event happening this week! See the organizers’ site for the full schedule (I like the printer friendly version on that page). I plan to be there and taking notes which I will post on the JI.

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