Category: Mormon Studies

  • FairConference, Thursday Afternoon Sessions

    Rachel Whipple

    Bob Rees A review of Earl Wunderli’s Imperfect Book   Started with this Card Colour changing trick video (http://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/2009/01/07/colour-changing-card-trick-outtakes/) to illustrate that too much focus on one thing can cause you miss the many other things that are going on. What aren’t you noticing? Emerson said,  “Tell me your sect, and I’ll tell you your…

  • Socially Constructed Mormonism

    Dave Banack

    This is the second post (see first post) discussing ideas presented in the recently published memoir of retired LDS sociologist Armand Mauss, Shifting Borders and a Tattered Passport: Intellectual Journeys of a Mormon Academic (Univ. of Utah Press, 2012; publisher’s page). After taking five years away from his graduate work to serve as a counselor…

  • The Problem With Correlation

    Dave Banack

    Over at Worlds Without End, Seth posted Overcoming Correlation, or Mormon Studies and Pastoral Care. Why do we keep talking about Correlation? Obviously, there’s something wrong, but there are various opinions as to what exactly that is and how one might go about fixing it. After recounting his own scholarly engagement with Mormon Studies, Seth…

  • MR: Samurai Jesus: A Review of Takashi Miike’s “Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai”

    Mormon Review

    The Mormon Review vol. 5 no. 1 is presented here, with Jonathon Penny’s review of Takashi Miike’s 2011 film Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai. By Jonathon Penny Open on a gaunt, intelligent looking man—Tsukumo Hanshiro—seeking the indulgence of a retinue of samurai at the palace of a feudal lord. He claims to be a ronin, a…

  • New Progress for Mormon Studies

    New Progress for Mormon Studies

    Kent Larsen

    The University of Virginia today announced today a $3 million anonymous donation to establish the Richard Lyman Bushman Chair of Mormon Studies in the University’s Department of Religious Studies. The chair is still subject to approval by the University’s Board of Visitors, after which a search committee will look for candidates for the inaugural appointment,…

  • The blood of Israel in Europe

    The blood of Israel in Europe

    Wilfried Decoo

    At a multi-stake conference in Berlin in 2010, Area President Erich W. Kopischke quoted Joseph Smith as having declared that “England, Germany, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, Holland and Belgium have a considerable amount of the blood of Israel among the people which must be gathered out.”

  • The Kirtland Church: A Review of Hearken O Ye People

    The Kirtland Church: A Review of Hearken O Ye People

    Sam Brunson

    I received my review copy of Hearken, O Ye People at work; I opened it and began to read on the El heading home. And, from page 1 (or, actually, page xvii), my jaw dropped. Staker started his book with an almost-15-page chronology of Kirtland, beginning in May 1796 as a group begins to survey…

  • Nothing to Apologize For (Part II)

    Ralph Hancock

    [Times & Seasons welcomes the second in a pair of posts from Ralph Hancock this week, who previously guested with us in 2010] I argued in Part I that the move from “apologetics” to “Mormon Studies” requires a bracketing of truth claims that may serve legitimate scholarly purposes, but that carries with it certain significant risks.  The New…

  • Practical Apologetics: Defining the middle path in Mormonism

    Dave Banack

    Rachel’s post a couple of weeks ago, The Threat of New Order Mormons, attracted so much discussion that I would like to follow up with my own discussion of middle-path Mormons. Various terms are used to describe those who self-categorize themselves as something other than fully active, fully believing Mormons: Uncorrelated Mormons, Cultural Mormons, New…

  • Guest Post: Why I Find Developments at the Maxwell Institute Concerning

    David Bohn

    [A guest post by Professor David Earl Bohn, retired professor of political philosophy at Brigham Young University] Recently, the Maxwell Institute announced a significant change of course on its website—one that re-directs the Institute’s focus away from apologetics and Mormon-centered research and toward a more generic emphasis on religious scholarship. The “bloggernacle” had actually been…

  • MR: Exquisitely Loud and Indelibly Close

    Mormon Review

    The Mormon Review vol. 4 no. 1 is presented here, with Jonathon Penny’s review of Stephen Daldry’s 2012 film Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. By Jonathon Penny I’m late with this, as with so much in my dog-eared, half-buttoned, last minute, Subway-sandwiched, twenty-first century life. I wrote the other day, on reflection about the harried…

  • Exploring Mormon Thought: Sex

    Exploring Mormon Thought: Sex

    Adam Miller

    I don’t know much about God (which is probably pretty obvious), but I have thought a lot about sex.

  • International Bibliography 2011

    International Bibliography 2011

    Kent Larsen

    This year I’ve again managed to put together a bibliography of international works on Mormonism. While I thought the list was substantial last year, it is much larger this year, at least in part because I think I’ve gotten better at finding what has been published. With any luck this will help call attention to…

  • Notes: Mormonism and the Internet

    Dave Banack

    Below are notes from today’s live-streamed presentations at Utah Valley University’s Mormonism and the Internet conference. I will bold particular comments that stand out as I listen. Readers are welcome to make additional observations in the comments. Any reader attending in person?

  • Call for Papers: IV Brazilian Mormon Studies Conference

    Kent Larsen

    IV Brazilian Mormon Studies Conference Annual Conference of the ABEM (Associação Brasileira de Estudos Mórmons) Theme “The Relationship between Headquarters and Periphery in the LDS Church” January 19, 2013 São Paulo, Brazil   Call for Papers In 1830, Joseph Smith organized the Church of Christ in Manchester, New York State, when the movement had only…

  • Apostle Biographies or “Holes in our History?”

    Apostle Biographies or “Holes in our History?”

    Kent Larsen

    Often I find that I am annoyed with the focus of much of Mormon History studies today. The articles and books published seem to mostly cover the Joseph Smith and Brigham Young eras, along with a bit of the later Utah period, up to the turn of the century. At least, that is my perception.

  • Conference Report: 3rd Brazilian Mormon Studies Conference

    Conference Report: 3rd Brazilian Mormon Studies Conference

    Kent Larsen

    I returned yesterday from attending the 3rd annual conference of the Associação Brasileira de Estudos Mórmons (Brazilian Mormon Studies Association) inspired with the fascinating subjects covered during the conference and ready to dive into another year of research in preparation for next year’s conference. In particular, one presentation was groundbreaking, changing the perception of Mormonism…

  • 12 Questions with Grant Hardy – part II

    12 Questions with Grant Hardy – part II

    James Olsen

    Here is the conclusion of Times & Seasons look at Grant Hardy’s new book Understanding the Book of Mormon, and the second half of our 12 Questions interview:

  • 12 Questions with Grant Hardy – part I

    12 Questions with Grant Hardy – part I

    James Olsen

    To cap off our roundtable review of Grant Hardy’s new book Understanding the Book of Mormon we’re fortunate to feature an interview with the book’s author. The interview will be posted in two parts. Our thanks to all who have participated, and especially Bro. Hardy.

  • Books of Interest to the LDS Nerd

    Ben S.

    A few of these are forthcoming, a few have appeared recently. I am compelled to read them all, as soon as I can get to them. Now Available Charles Harrel,“This Is My Doctrine”: The Development of Mormon Theology (Kofford Books) “In this first-of-its-kind comprehensive treatment of the development of Mormon theology, Charles Harrell traces the…

  • Mormon Studies Courses

    Kent Larsen

    A few years ago I came across a list of Mormon Studies courses complied by BYU professor Gideon Burton in 2008, the same year that the Claremont Graduate University started their Mormon Studies program and a year after Utah State started its program. Since it has been a few years, I thought Gideon’s list should…

  • Grant Hardy and Personal Scripture Study

    Grant Hardy and Personal Scripture Study

    Sam Brunson

    Every semester, one of my principal goals in my tax classes is to get my students to engage with the Internal Revenue Code. And it’s harder than you might think: often they don’t read the Code itself, focusing instead on the explanations in their casebook.[fn1] And their aversion to reading the Code is completely understandable:…

  • An Unsettling Book: Grant Hardy’s Understanding the Book of Mormon

    Dave Banack

    This is the fourth in a series of reviews of Grant Hardy’s Understanding the Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Guide (OUP, 2010) that we are posting this week at Times and Seasons. It says something about the book that there is still a lot to talk about.

  • Call for Papers: 3rd Brazilian Mormon Studies Conference

    Kent Larsen

    3rd Brazilian Mormon Studies Conference Annual Conference of the Associação Brasileira de Estudos Mórmons (Brazilian Mormon Studies Association –ABEM) January 28, 2012 São Paulo, Brazil Call for papers “Mormonism and its relationship with other denominations” The Mormon religious tradition is based on the concept of an apostasy by all Christian denominations and their consequent lack…

  • The Implied Statistical Report, 2010

    The Implied Statistical Report, 2010

    Kent Larsen

    A couple of years ago my post The Implied Statistical Report, 2008, looked at what can be learned from a detailed examination of the data the Church releases each April Conference. This conferences’ data includes an additional statistic not found in earlier reports, the number of Church Service Missionaries, which led me to look again…

  • A tool for Conference analysis

    Kent Larsen

    While we know that gospel principles are eternal, we must also admit that the language used to describe them changes over time. And now we have a tool for discovering and analyzing how Church leaders have changed their descriptions of the gospel over the past 160 years.

  • International Bibliography 2010

    International Bibliography 2010

    Kent Larsen

    With the growth of the LDS Church worldwide, I think few academics of Mormonism disagree that the Church’s international progress deserve more attention. Even so, I was surprised when I compiled a list of international publications from last year. The list is substantial.

  • MR: Death Is Lighter than a Feather: A Review of C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce

    Mormon Review

    A new issue of The Mormon Review is available, with Adam Greenwood’s review of The Great Divorce, by C.S. Lewis. The article is available at: Adam Greenwood, “Death Is Lighter than a Feather: A Review of C. S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce,” The Mormon Review, vol.3 no. 1 [HTML] [PDF] In this essay, Greenwood reads…

  • MR: Groundhog Day

    Mormon Review

    A new issue of The Mormon Review is available, with Adam Miller’s review of Groundhog Day, directed by Harold Ramis. The article is available at: Adam Miller, “Groundhog Day,” The Mormon Review, vol.2 no. 5 [HTML] [PDF] For more information about MR, please take a look at the prospectus by our editor-in-chief Richard Bushman (“Out…

  • MR: “Recovering truth: A review of Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method”

    Mormon Review

    A new issue of The Mormon Review is available, with James E. Faulconer’s review of Truth and Method by Hans-Georg Gadamer. The article is available at: James E. Faulconer, “Recovering truth:  A review of Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method,” The Mormon Review, vol.2 no. 3. [HTML] [PDF] For more information about MR, please take a…