From Brian Birch, also see the event website for more information: (more…)

Eva Pocs. Between the Living and the Dead: A Perspective on Witches and Seers in the Early Modern World. Trans. By Szilvia Redey and Michael Webb. Budapest: Central University Press, 1999.

Owen Davies. Cunning-Folk: Popular Magic in English History. London: Hambledon and London, 2003.

As I mentioned in my review of Emma Wilby, there is a growing focus in the study of early modern witchcraft on trying to get at the actual folk practices behind the accusations. Some of the most important works on the topic come out of Hungary where the witchcraft trials generally lasted longer. Pocs’s book is one such; I also include a little summary of Owen Davies book on the cunning-folk, which is also very helpful. (more…)

On Chris Smith’s post, in my attempt to defend “the bracket” or experiential agnosticism as a historiographical method, I made the remark that Fawn Bordie had said very little that was new. I no doubt was engaging in hyperbole, sometimes that happens around the blogs. (more…)

Religion, Politics, and Sugar: The Mormon Church, the Federal Government, and the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company, 1907-1921. By Matthew C. Godfrey. Logan: Utah State University Press, 2007.

Necessary Fraud: Progressive Reform and Utah Coal. By Nancy J. Taniguchi. Legal History of North America. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996.

Most historians are familiar with the Turner Thesis, Frederick Jackson Turner’s once-dominant argument that American history was made on its margins, on the frontier, and that historians who put slavery and the east coast at the center of the nation’s past were off the mark. (more…)

You’ve probably noticed a dearth of posts recently. I can only offer this as an excuse: end-of-semester busyness, recovering from the semester, vacationing, and….gearing up for MHA this weekend.

What follows are one-to-two paragraph abstracts of the MHA papers being presented by Juvenile Instructor contributors; as you’ll notice, for some reason they bunched all but one of us at the Friday 2pm slot (granted, three of us are on the same panel). It should also be noted that Chris Jones is responding to the session that Matt B. is a part of. There are numerous other bloggernacle celebrities taking part in the conference, enough so that it would make a list quite long. (more…)

Last night I had the pleasure of visiting with “youthful” Saints from the Ludlow Ward in Western Massachusetts for their Sunday night lesson. The invited speaker was Mr. Keith Hamilton, a former trial lawyer and chairman of the Utah board of Pardons and Parole. Among Keith’s many claims to firsts is the fact that he was the first black person to graduate from BYU law school. (more…)

Over at Religion in American History, I put up a post this morning as part of an ongoing series on “surprising or otherwise interesting primary sources.” I’m cross-posting it here for anyone interested: (more…)

Staker, Mark Lyman. Hearken, O Ye People: The Historical Setting of Joseph Smith’s Ohio Revelations. Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2009. xlii + 694 pp. Illustrations, maps, endnotes, appendix, bibliography, index, scripture index. Hardback: $34.95; ISBN 978-1-58958-113-5.

Reading through this 600-page text, one fact becomes crystal clear: Mark Staker has read, considered, and contextualized every document that has any relevancy to Mormonism’s Kirtland experience. Likely multiple times. He is not exaggerating when he writes that he “tried to piece together as thoroughly as possible the events connected with significant Mormon sites in Ohio” (xiii)—and “thoroughly” is nowhere near a strong enough word. His meticulous scholarship is a rare achievement in Mormon studies, and the broad range of sources listed in his (50 page) bibliography is a testament to the extent of his research. Though he rightly notes that this is not a “comprehensive history of the Kirtland period” (xl) because it does not touch on all important aspects of the decade—especially religious and ecclesiastical developments of the mid 1830s—one can only imagine the depth and length a “comprehensive history” in his hands would entail! (more…)

Here is Lisa’s self-introduction: I did my B.A. and M.A. in English at BYU, and I’ve just completed my PhD in English at the University of Houston. As part of my program, I also completed a graduate certificate in Women’s Studies, and most of my work has been directly or indirectly concerned with feminist theory and women’s history. I’ve been in and out of the academy and the work force for the past twenty years while I’ve been raising kids, so those issues are very real to me. (more…)

Hot off the press. [or from my inbox]

Mormon Engagement with the World Religions: Perspectives and Possibilities with the Abrahamic Religions
The Mormon Chapter of the Foundation for Interreligious Diplomacy
Held at the University of Southern California
June 11-12 (more…)

My thesis deals with the Mexican Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1879-1889. This is a little-explored page in LDS history that has come to vivid life through a wealth of primary documentation which has been assembled together for the first time. I discuss how the racial constructions that the missionaries and other leaders carried with them to the field affected their labors. Specifically, I focus on the failed colonization of Mexican Mormons by Mission leaders to the Mormon colonies in northern Mexico in 1887 and how this failure led to the closing of the Mission. (more…)

Hearken, O Ye People: The Historical Setting of  Joseph Smith’s Ohio Revelations  by Mark L. Staker (more…)